DAWN - Cowasjee Corner; 08 March, 1998
Skimmers and scammers
By Ardeshir Cowasjee
"YOU told us that each bird shot by Leghari, when president, cost us some Rs 25,000, that he was involved in a land scam with Yunus Habib, that he managed to recover some 30,000 acres of family land in Balochistan taken over in the 1972 land reforms. You wrote that he was responsible for many of the wrongs done since 1993. How can you now speak up for him?"
This I have been asked since my two columns on post- resignation Leghari were printed. My answer: Read again what I have written. On the scale of 'bad, worse, worst', Leghari stands at 'bad.' That is all. I met him here in Karachi, heard him pontificate, saw the video cassette of his speech to the media, as president, prior to his resignation, and then asked him whether he would stand by all he had said were he to be cross- questioned under oath in the Supreme Court. He answered in the affirmative.
He can disclose much more - the meddling with the judiciary last year, the conspiracies hatched to weaken it, how and why last November Rafiq Tarar flew to Quetta, in a special plane, how his arrival went unrecorded at the airport. Under cross-questioning by the attorney-general, the prime minister's lawyer rather than that of the people, the truth could have come on record.
Be that as it may, the Supreme Court judges with the wisdom and instinct gifted to them, declined to summon him to depose before them.
The Supreme Court is now inquiring into the November 28 storming of the court by members of the government and their imported goons. In their helplessness, and realizing that they are neither protected by the majesty of the court nor by the aura of their position, the honourable judges have been forced to request that they be afforded stricter and reinforced security by the relevant agencies to prevent a recurrence of that unfortunate incident (Dawn March 6).
Should the judiciary not raise itself up to the position of dominance its stature requires that it occupy in a democracy, so that in the public perception it stands like Caesar's wife, above and beyond any and all suspicion, clean and upright, a shining example to the other pillars of state?
On February 25, PIA flight No. PK 386, flying from Lahore to Islamabad (a half-hour flight), was delayed for some three hours. Dawn reports (Feb 26) that Justice Malik Qayyum of the Lahore High Court and Interior Minister Chaudhry Shujaat were travelling on that flight. The judge, justifiably irritated at the delay, enquired as to the problem. "After verifying that the flight had been delayed to facilitate Hussain Nawaz," the prime minister's son, he acted rightly. He set up his court at the airport, summoned the airport manager and suspended him. According to Dawn the interior minister intervened and asked the judge to withdraw his orders.
What does this say to the people? That the interior minister can tell a judge what to do and what not to do? That a Judge tamely takes orders from a minister? Should the judge not have politely told him exactly what he thought of him, summoned him to appear before his court the next day to face a contempt of court charge, and then convicted and sentenced him? Should the people be shown so blatantly that a judge of a high court can be swayed by the words of a minister? Should the Chief Justice of Pakistan not take notice of this incident and take appropriate action?
Now to skimmers and scammers. In order to combat Leghari and the remote possibility of his founding a viable opposition party, Hamza of the Public Accounts Committee has announced that approver Ahmad Sadiq, the closest aid to chief executive Benazir Bhutto, has disclosed that in 1994 a sum of Rs 80 million was paid out of the exchequer to Malik Allahyar, brother-in-law of the then president, Farooq Leghari, to purchase from a non- existent company non-existent helicopters. According to Sadiq, Benazir Bhutto ordered finalization of the deal on Leghari's insistence. (Leghari, of course, has since denied any knowledge of the scam.).
Should Benazir Bhutto not be charged with robbing the exchequer, and accomplices Sadiq and Cabinet Secretary Humayun Faiz Rasool with aiding and abetting? Why is the government procrastinating? Why is no attempt being made to recover the Rs 80 million? It could not simply have vanished into thin air. Where are the priorities?
On to a bigger scammer. From a column headed 'Bare bones - 3' printed in this newspaper on Friday December 8, 1995: "In 1995, Pakistan Steel Mill was headed, and well run, by engineer-General Sabih Qamar-uz-Zaman. The general totally disregarded the recommendations of ... Naheed Khan, so when his term expired, it was not extended. Acting charge of the mill was given to Sajjad Hussain, a man known neither for integrity nor ability. He failed to deliver to Islamabad the expected spoils, and in December was summarily displaced. Salman Farooqui's brother, 'Dr' Usman Farooqui, took over as acting chairman and managing director.
"In a well-researched article published in August 1992, Altaf Butt of Newsline had written on this man. 'Usman Farooqui has worked in key positions in state-owned public enterprises for more than a decade, with fake degrees. But since he happens to be the brother of a powerful secretary, Salman Farooqui, he continues to work on an important post in Pakistan Steel with impunity.'
"Farooqui's 1985 Annual Confidential Report rated him as 'below average' in leadership quality, intellectual integrity, and sense of responsibility in financial matters. Prior to his PS appointment, his services had been [dispensed with] by PACO, whose chairman noted on his transfer papers, 'he must be watched closely as he gives preference to personal benefit rather than the interest of the organization. He does not hesitate to make incorrect statements for his own benefit.' The US consulate general confirmed that his two foreign degrees, MBA and Ph.D, had been given by a non-genuine university well known for its selling of certificates and degrees. All this can be found on the records of Pakistan Steel. "Why was this man appointed, and to deliver what to Islamabad?"
Why? Because the wily Asif Zardari had correctly deciphered Major-General Jalaluddin's remarks made on his transfer papers that the man was a crook and a liar.
Two days later, early on the morning of December 10, a friend of mine who has the capacity of getting high on Rooh-Afza, rang. A sleepy voice told me that Mrs Usman Farooqui and her daughter were at his house requesting him to persuade me not to write more on Usman. Why, I asked, is the man not a thief? He may be, but he is her husband, I was told.
Later, at a New Year's Day reception, a woman introduced herself to me as Uquaili's daughter, Usman's wife, also introducing her young daughter Sharmila. You don't know what pressure Usman is under, she said, how much he has to send to Islamabad each week to keep his job. There was nothing I could tell an obedient wife.
We now know the pressure exerted on Usman. In his own kitty he has somewhere around Rs 3 billion. He is living comfortably in the Liaquat National Hospital. Should he now not make a clean breast of things and save his wife and daughter the indignity of police interrogation? Why are their photos being splashed all over the press, I asked an Ehtesab Bureau man? It has nothing to do with the Bureau, was the answer. The question should be asked of the newspaper editors - why did they print the photos?
Up higher, Hussain Lawai and his lawyer, jolly Khwaja Tariq Rahim (former Punjab governor known affectionately as KTR), can perform miracles. Lawai says he has never been to Australia. Our high commissioner in Canberra, Khawar Zaman, renowned for his integrity, tells me that Lawai managed to land in Perth, Western Australia, on March 3. The airport authorities neither liked his looks nor the look of his papers and decided that Australia could well do without him. He was held in the detention room at the airport and deported on March 4 by Singapore Airlines flight SQ226.
Saifur Rahman has the unenviable job of not only having to run down grand larcenists, champion swindlers, expert tumblers, but also of contending with opposing factions in his own party. Governor Shahid Hamid managed to get his relative, Captain Naseer, off the hook, and Chaudhry Shujaat engineered the release and escape of Salman Farooqui. That Salman could have fled the country without the prime minister's blessings is doubtful.