ISLAMABAD: National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq, Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani and Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khurshid Shah claimed on Wednesday that fake bank accounts had been opened in their names and that transactions worth tens of millions of rupees had been made from those accounts.
The senior federal lawmakers of the country were surprised to know that Rs100 million each had been deposited into the bank accounts they do not maintain.
The leader of the Opposition in the Senate Aitzaz Ahsan, Kashmir Committee Chairman Maulana Fazlur Rehman and others also claimed that fake accounts were being operated in their names.
According to a statement issued by the NA Secretariat, Speaker Ayaz Sadiq has ordered the State Bank governor and the Federal Investigation Agency director general to investigate the matter after he received a fake bank receipt of a fixed deposit account that he did not operate.
The speaker informed the State Bank governor that these transactions were fake. The statement also claimed that the speaker did not possess any bank account in the city or the bank mentioned on the transactions receipt.
“The State Bank has been informed about the issue and the speaker has clarified [that he has] nothing to do with those accounts,” the statement said.
Moreover, Sadiq and Shah got the receipts in their chambers in the Parliament House, while Rabbani received the receipt from SME Bank at his Karachi residential address.
Rabbani made the revelation during a session of the upper house of parliament on Wednesday. “This is a fraud. I don’t have an account in SME Bank,” he added. “Details of my bank accounts are clearly mentioned in my income tax returns.”
Rabbani said that he has taken up the issue with the SME Bank president and FIA’s director general, asking them both to investigate the fraud.
Khursheed Shah said he was surprised to see the Term Deposit Receipts from a private bank where he has no account.
“If no such account exists in my name, then how come Rs100 million can be deposited in it,” Shah said in a statement issued from his office.
The statement claimed that when the details were shared with the bank, they termed the deposits fake and the staff said such transactions had also been reported earlier.
“The issue has been referred to the SBP and the FIA for probe and to unveil names of those who are out to defame politicians,” it added.
Interestingly, the lawmakers do not have any account in their names in the cities where the transactions have purportedly taken place.
“There is no account [of the speaker] in that city,” said a press release from the press officer of the National Assembly. “The National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) was informed the day the fake deposits were made and that the speaker had nothing to do with them,” he added.