A Pakistani Minister Steals US$ 20 Million From A Pakistani Ambassador

Story Broken on Facebook

A young democracy reverts back to corruption as a battle ensues between two Pakistan Government titans over a commission worth US$ 20 million

Published by Tania Khan on Facebook and reproduced here verbatim

PakNationalists.com

Pakistan hit a new high in corruption when ‘state actors’ joined a resourceful cartel to create a fake nationwide shortage in a major commodity – sugar – and made millions.

Now some very powerful people in Islamabad are on their way to hitting another jackpot: a commission between US$ 15 to 20 million on a sugar consignment meant to plug the hole created by the fake shortage.

Two senior figures in the government, a federal minister and an ambassador to a Gulf state, have locked horns to grab the millions of dollars in commission. But only one of them will win and bag the bounty.

This is also a classic case of how corruption by junior government officials is hijacked by big fish when the commission is high.

Responding to a tender floated by the federal government for the import of 600,000 tons of sugar, Al Khaleej Sugar Trading (Pvt.) Ltd. submitted a bid of US$ 740 (London sugar price) plus US$ 80 as freight and premium charges on a per ton basis.

The initial negotiations for this bid were handled by Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates Mr. Khursheed Ahmed Junejo.  Apparently the final deal that Amb. Junejo reached with Mr. Jamal al-Ghurair, the CEO of Al-Khaleej Sugar Trading, involved a hefty kickback of somewhere around US$ 15 to US$ 2o million.  In return, Mr. Junejo committed himself to pulling all the necessary strings to ensure Mr. al-Ghurair’s bid is not only accepted but that the bid is exempted from federal government’s ceiling of US$ 50 on freight and premium charges.

What Ambassador Junejo did not anticipate is that the sweet deal might go sour on him and the rewards – the commission – would be bagged by people more powerful than him in the present government in Islamabad.

At some point, federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik jumped into the fray, backed apparently by no less than the President of Pakistan. Now, according to sources in the federal government, Mr. Malik is poised to win the race for the millions in commission in the Al-Khaleej Sugar Trading deal. According to sources, Mr. Malik will grab this deal instead of Mr. Junejo thanks to backing from no less than the President. No brownie points for where the commission is bound for.  Suffice to say that it will be far from the pockets of the man who was supposed to have pocketed it in the first place.

In an agricultural country where sugar cane is a major crop, the sugar shortage crisis is highly suspicious in the first place. It has become a case of state actors backing a resourceful mafia for the exploitation of national resources.

And once again, Pakistan’s democracy is under the threat of reverting back to the well known corruption stories that resulted in the failure of the entire political system in the past.

PakNationalists.com has reproduced this report verbatim from the post of Tania Khan on Facebook where it first appeared.

How Qureshi's Son Was Appointed In Kerry's Office

Let's just hope that he lost Pakistan's case on the Kerry-Lugar bill because of personal lack of conviction than a soft corner for Mr. Kerry who gave his son a job in a powerful place.

 

Normally, it would be great to have a Pakistani citizen join the staff of a powerful US legislator like John Kerry, the former presidential candidate, chairman of the US senate foreign relations committee and the man who was being considered for Obama's secretary of state before Hillary got the job.

It is another thing, however, if this Pakistani turns out to be the son of a serving Foreign Pakistani Minister working in the office of Mr. Kerry, the sponsor of the Kerry-Lugar bill with which most Pakistanis have a problem. 

There is a strong hint here of impropriety and conflict of interest.

The problem can be summed up in this question: Mr. Qureshi is supposed to be protecting Pakistani interest at a time when the US-Pakistani ties are going through a rough patch.  Does having his son work for Mr. Kerry create a conflict of interest for Foreign Minister Qureshi?

If you are a father, you develop a soft corner for the powerful man who has given your son an entry job in a powerful place. 

Did this natural gratitude affect Foreign Minister's judgment as he tried to manage the controversy over Kerry-Lugar bill?

Most observers agree that Foreign Minister Qureshi's performance in the Kerry-Lugar bill fiasco was weak, to put it mildly.  He refused to acknowledge Pakistani concerns and showered grandiose praise on the bill.  When he returned to Pakistan and was told of the reservations, he chose to go back to the United States supposedly to press for Pakistan's rights.  Only that he was sidelined in no time and forced to accept an 'explanatory' note instead.  And again he showered exaggerated praise on the note, calling it 'historic'. 

Some in Pakistan rightly suspect he did not even press Mr. Kerry on Pakistan's reservations mainly because his government in Islamabad couldn't care less.  It was the Pakistani military, opposition parties and the public opinion's demand and Mr. Qureshi's government was alone in accepting the anti-military US conditions.

Did Mr. Qureshi not fight Pakistan's case as strongly as he could because he was not convinced or because Mr. Kerry gave his son a big break?

Others have also noticed this.

Longtime journalist Anjum Niaz, in her column The Boston Brahmin published in today's The News, wrote the following:

After a number of phone calls to Senator Kerry's office, I finally found out from one of Kerry's male staffers that ZHQ did indeed work for Kerry but had now left. Why has ZHQ gone into hiding? Did he do something wrong? Yes. And the Foreign Office finds itself between a rock and a hard place. How can it condone its boss's act of getting his son a job with Kerry when the KLB talks were at a critical stage? Even if fate smiles upon ZHQ because he's the favoured son of our foreign minister and the doors of the high and mighty in Washington open up for him, we have the right to know whenever the son's job compromises his dad's position. More importantly if it is in direct conflict with Pakistan's interests.  Would you not call this a conflict of interest? Should the foreign minister resign? And if Zardari cannot afford to let him go, then the FM must seek a public apology […] Would he have given ZHQ the time of the day had the young man not been the son of Pakistan's foreign minister?"

The impression that something is not right in Mr. Qureshi being Pakistan's foreign minister while his son works for Sen. Kerry is also underlined by how Mr. Qureshi's brother has reacted to the story.  An Urdu-language daily newspaper, the Express, quoted the brother as saying that members of his feudal land-owning family 'does not seek employment' anywhere.  He said this while denying his nephew was 'employed' by Sen. Kerry.

There is also an interesting background to how Qureshi Jr. got the job on Capitol Hill.

This version of the story is not verified but comes from a knowledgeable source at the Pakistani Foreign Office:

"Shah Mahmood Qureshi's relations with Haqqani had become very tense in the early part of this year. During Zardari's for AFPAK consultations, Qureshi and Haqqani had a shouting match because the ambassador had sent something to the president without going through the foreign minister. Haqqani had direct line to Zardari, and he had some of Qureshi's decisions reversed. After the Long March when Zardari became a little weaker and Yousaf Raza Gilani a bit stronger, Haqqani decided to patch up with Qureshi. What did Haqqani do: He used his contacts with Kerry and had Qureshi's son appointed as his intern. With that favour, Qureshi has no more complaints against Haqqani.  So powerful is Haqqani that he has never allowed Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir to set foot in Washington. 

Whatever the truth, two points are clear:

One, Foreign Minister Qureshi should have had the courage to refuse to fly back to Washington to renegotiate the controversial anti-Pakistan clauses if he was not personally convinced.  That he did so merely to placate the powerful Pakistani military reflects poorly on his record.

Second, his son's internship in Sen. Kerry's office raises a legitimate question of a conflict of interest. Mr. Qureshi should have seen this one coming since he is known to be an upright politician by the standards of politicians in this country. 

Let's just hope that he lost Pakistan's case on the Kerry-Lugar bill because of personal lack of conviction than a soft corner for Mr. Kerry.

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SEE THIS

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An 'Explanatory' Note From Washington To Pakistan

How Pakistan Interior Minister Helped US Embassy Import Illegal Weapons Without Telling ISI

Musharraf Sound Asleep Tonight

Let me cut through the confusion and tell you this.

The case in the court is about two Sindh high court judges who want to be reinstated. It is not about Musharraf. The former president is not under prosecution.

His name came up because the fate of the two judges depends on an action taken by the former president two years ago.

If the former president’s action is right, then the two judges can be restored to their jobs. If the action is wrong, the two judges will stay jobless.

Someone emailed me asking: If the court proves that introducing emergency rule on Nov. 3, 2007, was wrong, does that mean Mr. Musharraf will be hanged?

Hell, no. Not in this case. Someone has to register a separate case against the former president for that to happen. And even then it’s not guaranteed.

It is the fate of the two jobless judges that is being decided, not Musharraf’s.

Case closed.

I am sure Mr. Musharraf will have a good night's sleep in London tonight without any worry.

A word for the judges: Maybe the Supreme Court of Pakistan should probe the case of the politician caught red handed in credit card theft and fraud and is still walking free, thanks to the plane hijacker whom the court found not guilty a few days ago.

Or how about the other provincial minister who almost raped a woman and then settled quietly out of court and continues to be in his job.

Better still, maybe the Supreme Court should take up NRO, the law that washed clean our President, his Interior Minister and terrorists from several Pakistani political parties that pretend to be parties when they are actually made up of thugs and criminals.

[I won't mention the minister suspected of protecting the accused in burying three women alive in Balochistan, or the feudal lords who threw a pregnant young woman to hungry dogs in Sindh. It's hard to believe I am still talking about our 'democracts', these gems of Pakistani democracy!].

Doing any of the above is better for the Supreme Court than wasting our time and its own by involving itself in issues like Musharraf or the case of the hijacker prime minister who endangered the country’s security and reputation by kidnapping the plane of the army chief.

Seriously, Pakistan these days is under the reign of the deranged. Who is guiltier? A former president who came to save the nation and ended up handing it over to criminals? Or criminals who think they are politicians and statesmen? Or judges who are making rulings as if they are living in Switzerland, as if Pakistan were some kind of a birthplace of democracy?

It’s a country ruled by thieves. Wake up, judges.

Fake Democracy, Rich Democrats

Fake democrats produce a fake democracy. This is what our westernized Pakistani elite and some of the self-styled ‘liberals’ in our media don’t understand. A Parliament filled with feudal lords who rape the women of the peasants on their lands and operate secret prisons, and then come to the Parliament in expensive shiny cars and jewelry thanks to political parties where another set of feudals run them as family grocery shops—this is no democracy. I prefer a centralized system of governance led by technocrats committed to economic and political reform ruling for 5-10 years, implementing a plan backed by the Pakistani military in the background.

Here’s how our democrats and ‘workers’ of democracy filed their statement of assets recently. This information was compiled by the Center for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad. It shows our democrats, all of them, not only lying to the Election Commission about how much money they have but also confident that an important law that punishes the liars will never be implemented.

REPORT: An overwhelming majority of [Pakistanis is] not prepared to accept that the Prime Minister of Pakistan does not own a home or a plot of land; has no vehicle and has a total bank balance of just Rs. 979,734 ($12,246).

Even more unbelievable are statements submitted by Pakistan’s religious leaders including Maulana Fazlur Rahman and his confidants, Maulvi Agha Muhammad and Abdul Ghafoor Haidri, Secretary General of Jamiat-e-Ulma-e-Islam (F). Maulana Fazlur Rahman owns a house, domestic furniture worth Rs.50,000 but does not have any inherited property or vehicle and a mere Rs. 3,000 in his bank account. Total assets declared by Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haidri are valued at Rs. 650,000 ($8,125). JUI-F’s Senator Maulana Gul Naseeb’s declared assets stand at Rs. 30,000 only. Maulvi Agha Muhammad declared that he only has Rs. 1,500 ($18.75) in his bank accounts.

The total value of assets declared by Mushahid Hussain Syed, PML(Q)’s Secretary General, stand at Rs. 35,000 ($437). Former Chief Minister, Punjab, and former Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly, Chaudhry Pervez Ilahi, does not have a car and he has a total of 78 acres of land.

Dr Ayatullah Durrani, PPP’s Minister of State for Industries and Production, has no assets (he has mentioned that he operates two bank accounts but failed to declare the balances held in those accounts). Durrani also mentions that he shares the agricultural land with his family and has “no other source of income.” Another legislator of PPP, Jamshed Ahmed Dasti, said that he had no assets or property and operated just one bank account to draw his salary as a parliamentarian. Federal Minister for Water and Power, Raja Pervez Ashraf, valued his personal luxury vehicles at Rs. 1.5 million.

Pakistan Muslim League-N’s MNA, Rana Abdul Sattar, submitted a blank statement and he does not own any property, vehicle, business or any personal belongings. Ms. Reena Kumari, MNA, Pakistan Muslim League-Functional, just signed the statement but did not mention the details of any of her assets.

Some legislators even claimed that they did not own any property or many of their multi-million rupee properties were gifted to them by “unknown sources.”

The Most Interesting Asset’s Declaration: Notably, most interesting of all the statements came from Hamza Shahbaz, son of Mian Shahbaz Sharif, President, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz. Hamaza Shahbaz’s statement depicts an asset base in the amount of Rs. 210 million and an equivalent amount of liabilities. His wife, Mehrunnisa Hamza, has jewelry worth Rs. 2.5 million and an equivalent amount in liabilities.

Pakistani lawmakers have not done any service to their country, democracy or the people of Pakistan. Pakistani parliamentarians need to set examples that ordinary Pakistanis can follow, admire and implement on themselves. If at all the governing elite wants to bring in the culture of rule of law, of which much is talked about, then all of this must begin at home. Personal accountability must become the first step toward a culture of good governance, and transparency before the people of Pakistan.