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2009-12-05 India-Pakistan
Guess who walked away with nation's 100 bn rupees?
In a country where over 40 per cent of the population is said to be languishing under the poverty line with families surviving on less than $2 a day, the shameful revelation of the filthy rich getting loans worth over Rs100 billion written-off owing to their formidable clout is shocking the nation. And this shameful list carries some of the biggest names of our power elite.

The names of Ch Shujaat and Ch Pervez Elahi were found among about 1,000 influential businessmen and Army men who got a total of Rs18 billion loans written-off from the government-owned banks during the first three years of the military government. The list was submitted in the NA when Zafarullah Jamali was the prime minister and Shaukat Aziz was the finance minister.

The first loan of Rs70 million was outstanding against the Punjab Sugar Mills and was written off by the National Bank of Pakistan along with the actual loan amount. The mill was owned by Chaudhry Shujaat Husssain, Chaudhry Mansoor Elahi, Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, Chaudhry Gulzar Mohammad, Chaudhry Wajahat Hussain, Chaudhry Sabhat Elahi, Mrs Qisara Elahi (wife of Chaudhry Pervez Elahi), Mrs Kasur Hussain (wife of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain), Mrs Khalida Begum (wife of Gulzar Muhammad).

Continued from Page 4



The second loan of Rs15 million was written off by the UBL outstanding against Punjab Sugar Mills. The beneficiaries were once again Ch Manzoor Elahi, Ch Shujaat Hussain, Pervez Elahi, Wajahat Hussain, Shafaat Hussain, Gulzar Ahmed and Mrs Qaisra Elahi, Khalida Begum, and Kauser Hussain. The UBL once again wrote off another loan of Rs34.1 million outstanding against the Spaco Private Limited. The beneficiaries were the same -- Ch Pervez Elahi, Shujaat Hussain, Manzoor Elahi, Wajahat Hussain, Sabahat Elahi, Mrs Kauser Hussain, Qaisra Elahi.

It may be added that these loans were written off after declaring their industrial establishments as "sick industry or on the pretext of bankruptcy." Many of them denied having got their loans written-off.

The political sources claimed that Shahbaz Sharif and Nawaz Sharif knew this troubling fact about the Chaudhrys of Gujrat. Even Imran Khan had been showing the official documents of another bank, which had also written off loans to get the Chaudhrys disqualified from contesting the elections. But his desperate pleas were never entertained by the Election Commission of Pakistan courtesy the might and clout these cousins enjoyed during the early years of General Pervez Musharraf in power. The sources said, on the basis of their own knowledge about the Chaudhrys loan write off, the Sharif brothers were agitating the issue of loan write-off in the media with the public demand to put all the loan beneficiaries on trial after recovering the written-off amounts.

The mighty Chaudhrys of Gujrat -- Ch Shujaat Hussain, Ch Pervez Elahi and their family members -- reportedly got three different bank loans of Rs120 million written off from the National Bank and United Bank of Pakistan during their heady days of power. This has been revealed in the official record of the National Assembly library, which has now formally confirmed that several top politicians and their family members had quietly got several bank loans written off, which had been outstanding against their sugar and textile mills and other industrial units.

These bank loans were mainly written off by the state-run National Bank of Pakistan and United Bank Limited in the past. The official record available with The News, which was placed in the NA in the last one decade, revealed that a total of Rs30 billion loans were written off between 1985-2002, which had been outstanding against the top politicians and powerful industrial groups of the country. The list was compiled by the then caretaker government of 1993 led by Moin Qureshi.

In 2007, Auditor General of Pakistan revealed in its report that during the period 2002-2007, a sum of Rs54 billion was written off by Musharraf government. Thus, total figure had reached to Rs85 billions. But, now the recent official report to the NA during the question hour revealed that the total figure of written-off loans had finally crossed over Rs100 billion, after adding the loan amounts written off during two years of PPP government since 2008.

The official list of loan write-off beneficiaries of different periods since 1985 to 2002 revealed that former speaker Gohar Ayub Khan's family and former Chief Minister Balochistan Jaam Yousuf, are also among other prominent politicians, who got the loans written off from the banks.

The three mighty business families of Pakistan are also among the beneficiaries of these loan write offs in the past. The former housing minister of General Pervez Musharraf -Abbas Sarfraz is also among the beneficiaries who got a massive loan against his sugar mill written off. Lt General Habibullah and Brig M Jan are among the list.

The Saifullah family of Lucky Marwat got four loans written off from different banks. The names of Anwar Saifullha Khan, Javed Saifullah, Hamayun Saifullah, Arbab Saddaullha Khan, Shah Jehan Khan, Nisar Khan are part of the list submitted in the NA in 1994 in response to a question by MNA Barjees Tahir. First, the Saifullah brothers got loans written off against their mill-- Ms Kohat Textile Mills from the National Bank. The matriarch of the Saifullah family, Mrs Kalsoom Saifullah also got a loan of Rs12 million written off from NBP against Ms Frontier Towel Works, Kohat. Industrial bank also wrote off loan of Rs26 million of Javed Saifullah, Salim Saifullah, Hamayun Saifullah and others against Kohat Textile Mills. The MCB also wrote off loan against the Kohat Textile Mill. Jatoi family of Sindh also got a loan of Rs6.7 million written off from UBL. The beneficiary was Dr Ghafar Jatoi and his brothers. Leghari family also got Rs67 million loans written off from UBL. The beneficiaries included Jafar Khan Leghari, Jamil Ahmed Khan Leghari, Yousuf Khan Leghari, Tariq Khan Leghari, Atta Mohammad Leghari, etc.

Saigal group got the loan written off against Omaryar Limited, Lahore. The group got another loan of Rs4 million written off from the UBL.

A loan of Rs10.3 million was written off by Investment Corporation of Pakistan. Iqbal Z Ahmed, Mrs Saira Ahmed also got a loan of Rs5.5 million written off from United Bank of Pakistan. Another small loan of Rs1.4 million got written off from UBL against Hassan Ali and company. A loan of Rs18 million was also written off against Hashoo Holdings.

Meanwhile, investigations conducted by this correspondent after going through the official record of the National Assembly Secretariat, where all these loan documents were placed from time to time since 1994, even Daewoo Corporation of Pakistan was one of the beneficiaries of such big loans written-off by the government banks. National Bank of Pakistan had written off a loan of Rs10 million against Daewoo. The loan was outstanding against Kim Waoo Choong, Kim Joun Sung, Lee Woo Bok, Yoon Nuke NEON, Chui Myoung Kul.

The list showed that Karachi-based businessmen have been treated with exceptional kindness by the National Bank of Pakistan. According to the list of such people whose loans and principal amounts were written-off during the last three years, National Bank of Pakistan wrote off billion of rupees from taxpayers' accounts. Most of the written-off loans went to the textile and industrial giants of the country owned by mighty businessmen, politically influential, former bureaucrats and military officers.

The big industrialists like Adamjee Industries owned by Farooq Sheikh, Mrs Shireen Farooq, Mumtaz Sheikh, Tahir Sheikh got Rs448 million written-off from the NBP. Mohib Textile owned by Asif Saigol also got Rs1.1 billion written-off in 2002.

The other big names included in the list are First Tawakkal Modaraba owned by Abdul Qadir Tawakkal, Mohammad Rafiq Tawakkal, Alif Husain Mooney, Abid Hussain Rs621 million written-off, National Frutctose Limited owned by Shairullah Durrani got Rs681 million written-off, Glamour Textile Mills owned by Iftikhar Ahmed Malik got Rs533 million written-off and others. Two foreign nationals also got the loans written-off.

Pakland Cement got Rs10 million written off, Cast N Link owned by Anwar Ahmed got Rs159 million written-off. Taha Spinning limited got Rs64 million written off.
Posted by Fred 2009-12-05 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11136 views ]  Top

#1 uh, it's south central asia. there's corruiption, big time! they can barely deliver the mail in this part of the world.
Posted by 746 2009-12-05 10:29||   2009-12-05 10:29|| Front Page Top

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