The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) seems in a mess over the alleged tempering of records of Chaudhry Sugar Mills and both SECP and Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) are reportedly reluctant to share what the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) of Panama case needed for investigating money laundering by Sharif Family.
According to sources, the controversy regarding record tampering and backdated noting and signing of SECP’s 2013 documents of Chaudhry Sugar Mills (CSM) probe in 2016, was a deliberate attempt to delay the investigation process and divert the attention towards the money laundering. Both the organisations are reluctant to provide the details like balance sheet, inflows and outflows of CSM and Hudaibiya Paper Mills to the JIT.
‘Whatever is going on at SECP, where the chairman is alleged to pressurise subordinates to put backdated note in an official file in 2016 to confirm that the investigations against CSM was closed in 2013, seems to be a deliberate attempt on the part of higher authorities to gain more time by keeping investigating teams indulged in small controversies’, they said adding that an officer of BPS-18 cannot go against the head of the institution.
Maheen Fatima, a director at SECP, had reportedly told the FIA that she had informed the JIT about SECP chairman’s pressure to do the illegal job by changing dates on the document. SECP Chairman Muhammad Zafar-ul-Haq Hijazi has rejected the allegation.
‘The way the developments are being reported regarding investigation into money laundering it is very difficult for JIT to reach a conclusion. The JIT members may seek more time for visiting Qatar, Saudi Arabia and London to investigate more things related to the London flats of Sharif Family even after submitting its report to Supreme Court of Pakistan by July 10’, the sources claimed.
According to the source at FBR, the JIT may not find enough material to establish a case of money laundering since cases of tax evasion and defaults have already been settled by National Accountability Bureau (NAB). Though the former FBR chairman Dr Muhammad Arshad claimed that all the records which were requested by JIT have been provided, no substantial record has been provided to the team so far. Since Dr Arshad is retired recently the investigation of records at FBR under as acting head of the institution will be more difficult task. The former chairman had claimed that FBR has provided the record of the Sharif family from 1980 to date, adding that no record has been concealed.
According to insiders, in case the present SECP Chairman Muhammad Zafar-ul-Haq Hijazi, who will be completing his term after four months, resigns, the ongoing investigation regarding record tempering will also be affected. He may quit office in case the controversy remains unsettled amidst mounting pressure. Retirement of key officials at FBR and SECP would definitely affect the process of investigation.
Sources also doubt that the interrogation of National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) President Muhammad Saeed Ahmed by the JIT for merely few hours may not help the investigation into money laundering. He was a key person to investigate into Hudaibiya Paper Mills as Finance Minister Ishaq Dar in his confessional statement had declared him a ‘close friend’ claiming that Ahmed’s accounts had been used to ‘handle’ the Sharif family’s finances.
Senator Dar’s handwritten statement, given before a magistrate back on April 25, 2000, had alleged that Sharif brothers used the Hudaibiya Paper Mills as cover for money laundering during the late 1990s.