TDAP scam: Court issues warrants for Gilani, Faheem

The two PPP leaders must appear before court on June 17 and face trial.

KARACHI:

An anti-corruption court issued non-bailable warrants on Thursday for the arrest of former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani, his ex-cabinet colleague Makhdoom Amin Faheem, and seven others over their alleged involvement in a major trade subsidy scam.

The judge of the special federal anti-corruption court-I, Mohammad Azeem, issued the warrants against Gilani, Faheem, the director to the former minister for industries and trade Farhan Junejo, Faisal Siddique, Mian Tariq, Maher Haroon Rasheed Raisani, Anisul Hasnain, Imran Sabir and a former personal assistant to then PM Gilani, Muhammad Zubair.

They are facing trial in connection with major irregularities in granting freight subsidies to fake trading companies by the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) amounting to over Rs50 million while misusing their official positions.

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had initiated investigation into the scam and had arrested four people – including Abid Javed Akbar, Tariq Iqbal Puri, Javed Anwar Khan and Abdul Karim Daudpota – over the allegation of granting freight subsidies to 48 bogus companies.

The investigation revealed that 22 did not exist while the others were established and were being run without having fulfilled the rules and regulations laid down by the TDAP.

On Thursday, the investigation officer submitted the final charge sheet before the court, stating that the suspects Junejo and Siddique had played the role of frontmen for Amin Faheem and Gilani, respectively. In addition, Tariq and Raisani, too, played the role of middlemen in securing trade subsidies for fake companies.

According to the charge-sheet, Amin Fahim had deputed Junejo, a suspended grade-18 officer of the Sindh government, as the director to the commerce ministry. Junejo, along with the co-accused, had allegedly withdrawn around Rs56million from the banks in the name of subsidies to the fake companies and misappropriated this amount.

It was also revealed that Junejo had allegedly transferred the corruption money through hawala and hundi to his bank account in Dubai.

The charge sheet further stated that Siddique went to the PM House in 2008 and handed over a cheque worth Rs5 million to the personal assistant, Zubair, seeking PM’s approval to direct the TDAP CEO Tariq Iqbal Puri to favour him.

The final charge-sheet linked the role of all these people to the scam and requested the court to issue non-bailable warrants for their arrest so that the investigation could be finalised. Allowing the investigation officer’s request, the judge issued the warrants for their arrest and appearnace before court on June 17.

A case, No.27/13, under sections 409, 420, 468, 471 and 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code read with section 5 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947, and 3/4 of Money Laundering Act, 2010, was registered at the FIA Crime Circle.


Published in The Express Tribune, May 30^th, 2014.