Will Nawaz’s adviser return public money?

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Official documents presented before the special committee of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday revealed that Tariq Fatemi, former diplomat and now senior foreign policy adviser to PML-N President Nawaz Sharif, had illegally drawn $2,460 from the national kitty when he was serving as the high commissioner of Pakistan to Zimbabwe in 1995.
The audit report for the year 1998-99 of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs presented before the PAC’s special committee revealed that Fatemi proceeded to Pretoria on April 4, 1995 for the treatment of his wife. “It was a private tour but he claimed daily allowance and mileage charge for 13 nights amounting to $2,406. The payment was inadmissible and stands recoverable,” the audit objection said.
The audit paragraph was not taken up in PAC’s special committee meeting as the convenor, Zahid Hamid, had given general directions to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for recovering all amounts paid in violation of rules to diplomats and other staff of Pakistani missions abroad.
Fatemi has served as the high commissioner to Zimbabwe (1993-1996) with concurrent accreditation to Angola, Botswana, Namibia and Zambia, and also as the ambassador to the United States for three months (September to December 1999). For the last several years, Fatemi has been is working with Nawaz in the capacity of senior foreign policy adviser.
Meanwhile, expressing dissatisfaction over the inquiry conducted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the sale of the Pakistani Chancery Building in Jakarta, the PAC monitoring and implementation committee directed the ministry to fix responsibility and propose disciplinary action against those responsible. The committee, which met with Yasmeen Rehman in the chair, was presented the inquiry report by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which revealed serious irregularities in the sale of the chancery building in Jakarta in 2002.
Regarding then head of chancery SMH Razvi, the Foreign Ministry’s inquiry report says: “As regard SMH Razvi, this committee is of the opinion that he has fallen victim to efforts to clear the name of the ambassador under any circumstances. His innocence would have been vindicated if the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was allowed to undertake inquiry per normal rules and procedures,” the report adds.
The audit officials had informed the committee that in February 2002, Pakistan’s ambassador to Indonesia Gen (r) Mustafa divested the chancery building at a cost of $1.320 million and remitted the same to Pakistan by crediting it to the federal treasury. When then deputy head of chancery Syed Mushtaq Haider Rizvi pointed out the irregularity in the sale in 2002 and informed the Foreign Ministry, then president Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf’s Secretariat sent a high-level inquiry team headed by cabinet secretary Javed Masood to Jakarta to probe into the allegations of embezzlement.
However, the inquiry committee gave a clean chit to the sale agreement and recommended that the deal be approved from a competent authority. Accordingly, a meeting of the committee was held under the chairmanship of Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf on May 16, 2002, during which it was decided that the sale of chancery building in Jakarata was legal and therefore stood approved. Mushtaq Haider Rizvi, the person who pointed out the irregularity, was recalled to Pakistan and served as an OSD for six years until his retirement.

7 COMMENTS

  1. Tariq Fatemi's conduct is surprising. I have seen him on many TV talk shows. He talks as one from a high moral ground. He needs to return public money and also owes an explanation to the nation and his viewers.

  2. Mr. Tariq Fatemi is "His Master's Voice" which is also reported as stalwart of Mr. Nawaz Sharif PML-N. He not only owes what he swindled away but also needs to confess about his failure on foreign policies throughout his career of 35 years or so. These types of persons are only "Pushed-in" experts on TV talk shows due to their leadership's connections in the media houses. He only talks about moral high grounds according to the understanding of his leadership whom he represents time and again.

  3. I always suspected the antecedents of this man merely from his mannerism and speech. I was not wrong. Such characters have done harm to the country and the Foreign Ministry. Nawaz Sharif has never been known for his IQ and this is one such example.

  4. and will Pakistan Today do a follow up on the status of the pending NLC report, a report that might result in the return of an amount that is many times more than that drawn by Mr. Fatemi… so the question is, will PT and the rest of the media do that? i.e. diversify their reporting to cover more than 50% of the budget (i.e. the army) and not just concentrate on less than 15% (i.e. the politicians)…

  5. According to a Pakistan ambassador, Tareq fatimi is employed by a foreign intelligence organisation for $950 per month. A check of his banking record could reveal this and should be done. This seems to be a dangerous man.

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