ISLAMABAD: Members of Senate’s Committee on Finance grilled Zafar Abdullah, who is the acting chairman of Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), over the alleged money laundering by a Chinese firm in Multan Metrobus Project.
However, the acting chairman of SECP claimed that neither he nor any commissioners at SECP have access to the documents related to the alleged corruption, money laundering in Multan Metrobus.
The meeting of the finance committee was held on Wednesday with its chairman Senator Saleem Mandviwla in the chair. SECP Acting Chairman Zafar Abdullah was accompanied by Commissioner Akif Saeed and Khilada Habib who is the head of International Relations Department.
Responding to the queries of members of the committee, Zafar Abdullah said that only information related to the allegations of corruption and money laundering by contractors of Multan Metrobus was shared in the commission meetings.
Repeating its earlier stance, the SECP representatives informed the committee that the issue was raised after inquiry was initiated by the regulatory authority of China about suspicious inflows in the accounts of a company.
As a result, China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) initiated investigations against the Chinese company Jiangsu Yabaite Technology Co. Ltd (Yabaite), in 2016, while Yabaite, informed the Chinese regulators that it received the amount after executing work at the metro bus project in Multan.
Based on this information, a delegation of CSRC arrived in Pakistan in December 2016 and also approached SECP at that time, officially seeking assistance over the information provided by Yabaite. According to SECP, while correspondence continued with CSRC, the SECP forwarded the case to FIA on August 30 after certain fake letters were related to Punjab CM and two senators were presented by Yabaite to the Chinese regulator. The committee was informed that Yabaite told the Chinese regulator that the payments were received; it was the sub-contractor of firm Capital Engineering in the Multan Metrobus.
Saleem Mandviwla asked a series of question from the SECP team but the team could not satisfy him. Senator Mandviwala asked if the documents provided by the CSRC revealed statement by one of the chief executive of Capital Engineering that the firm (Capital Engineering) was owned by Mr Shehbaz Sharif, CM Punjab.
Surprisingly, the SECP officials declined to comment on the question simply saying that there was no record or presence of Capital Engineering and the SECP could not trace its address; similarly there was no contact details including the CNIC of its CEO.
Instead of sharing the required information, the SECP officials repeatedly said that the investigation was being carried out by FIA and that they were waiting for final inquiry report from the CSRC.
Members of the Senate committee noted the missing link and raised the question: how did the Chinese met the CEO of Capital Engineering, because his statement was present in the documents forwarded by CSRC to the SECP?.
Apart from Senator Saleem Mandviwala, Senator Mohsin Aziz, Senator Ilyas Bilour and even Senator Saud Majeed decried the SECP for possibly delaying the inquiry deliberately, and called for further inquiries of actions taken by SECP in this regard.
Later, talking to media, one of the committee members said that $17.5 million have been remitted from Dubai only, while the amount was received by Yabaite from Malaysia, USA and Hong Kong too. “This all came to limelight after the suspended chairman of SECP Zafar Hijazi was netted by the FIA,” the senator added.