LAHORE: The declining prospects of the Kisan Supplies Services (KSS), a failed financial venture initiated by the Jamaat-e-Islami, has put question marks over the credibility of the JI leadership, which is battling hard to contain damages and even get rid of the whole project that ruined the financial lives of many stakeholders.
About 15 years ago, JI initiated a business venture in the name of “Kisan Supplies Services”. The project was started with an initial paid-up capital of Rs 10 million. The declared objective of this project was to supply pesticides and other agric inputs to farmers on competitive rates. However, those privy to the developments at that time were of the view that KSS was launched to finance some other discreet project of the JI.
Available evidence conclusively pointed out that JI lacked the essential human capital and business running skills. To top it all, the whimsical running of the organisation, based on personal likes and dislikes, further aggravated the problem. Kisan Board President Chaudhary Imdad was made the first KSS head.
Afterwards, Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry, the JI deputy secretary general at that time, became its chief executive. He held the office from August 1997 to March 2000. The real damage at KSS began during the leadership of Ijaz – a man with an engineering background and no qualifications in the agriculture sector.
The financial position of the KSS kept on deteriorating steadily over the years. Alarmed by this state of affairs, JI’s Markazi Majlis-e-Shura took up the alleged corruption, mismanagement, and incompetence in their meeting and the matter was thoroughly discussed. There was a general consensus on selling the KSS but no buyer was immediately available.
When Pakistan Today contacted JI leaders for their version on the story, most of them chose to remain silent. Only JI Secretary General Liaqat Baloch opened up with a guarded comment that “companies default, there is nothing unusual about it”.
When asked whether JI’s own funds were used to pay for the defaults at KSS, he replied, “These were the assets of the company and we comfortably managed it without having to take any money from any other fund or organisation. As far as the business is concerned, we paid up to143 percent profits to our share holders”.
Ijaz, who remained KSS CEO for three years and on whom much of the responsibility of this fiasco rests, chose to remain circumspect. He said, “During my tenure, dividend was paid thrice. Whatever happened, it was after 2007.”
Alternate version: The other side of the coin presents a different picture. Bashir Jakhar of Burewala, a devoted worker of JI, invested Rs 400,000 in KSS. He was also offered a job of sales officer, which he did for 12 years. He claimed, “KSS is yet to return my capital and pay my salary which amounts to Rs 2.5 lacs. I requested, and even protested, to the top leadership of JI but to no avail. The worst of the nepotism in KSS was seen under Mr Ijaz Ch and it continued unabated during the tenure of all of his successors”.
Muhammad Saeed from Adelaide, Australia had a similar story to tell. He wrote, “I invested Rs 400,000 in KSS in 1996. During a period of over five years I have found following malpractices:
No chance: The profit of KSS declined gradually with the downfall of interest rate in Pakistan. To me, it seems like a matter of engineered manipulation rather than a chance decline in profit. During this period the assets/investment of the company has increased manifold, where as profit distributed to investor is just enough to stop devaluation of money due to inflation.
