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Three ex-Army generals found guilty of Rs 25 bn scam
By Rauf KlasraISLAMABAD: A nine-year-old Rs 25 billion scam of the Musharraf regime has returned to haunt his three favourite ex-Army Generals, who administered the Pakistan Railways in 2001, former ISI chief Javed Ashraf Qazi, Saeeduz Zafar and Hamid Hassan Butt.
A 20-member special parliamentary committee of the National Assembly, formed by Speaker NA Dr Fahmida Mirza on April 22, 2008, investigated the lease of PR’s hundreds of acres of land of Royal Palm Golf and Country Club, Lahore, to a private party. It has now recommended to the government to register criminal cases against these ex-generals and confiscate and auction their property to recover the losses before cancelling the deal.
These generals were summoned by the committee to give their side of the story but they failed to convince the members of their innocence. This is the major finding of any parliamentary committee since the return of democracy in 2008. The special committee has recommended immediate termination of the contract signed in 2001 and appointment of a new ad hoc committee for the interim period. It recommended fresh leasing of the Royal Palm Golf Course in an open auction so that maximum revenue could be generated for the Pakistan Railways, which according to its calculation might exceed Rs 40 billion.
This correspondent had exposed this scam in 2001 when it had landed in the Public Accounts Committee, after Auditor General of Pakistan had claimed that the then army generals were not ready to hand over the secret documents of the deal signed with their favourite party, where the father-in-law of General Pervez Musharraf’s son used to work as a consultant. The then railways minister Javed Ashraf Qazi had “condemned” this correspondent for filing this story.
The committee has also recommended prosecution of all the four members of the executive committee of the Railways who had executed this deal with the patronage of these Army generals, and confiscation of their property too.
The parliamentary inquiry report, which took more than two years to complete, has now revealed that the contract was achieved through fraud, cheating and misrepresentation. The parliamentary inquiry team headed by MNA Nadeem Afzal Chann submitted its report in the National Assembly on Friday. Other members of the team included Tariq Tarar, Tariq Shabir, Nasir Ali Shah, Nauman Islam Sheikh, Fauzia Wahab, Noor Alam Khan, Sardar Ayaz Sadiq , Abid Sher Ali, Raja Mohammad Asad Khan, Abdul Majeed Khanan Khail, Malik Bashir Awan, Haji Rozud Din, Pervaiz Khan, Sheikh Waqas Akram, Marvi Memon, Arbab Zakaullah, Engineer Shaukat Ullah, Gulam Murtaza Khan Jatoi, Iqbal Mohammad Khan and the minister for railways.
The report said its members discussed and investigated the matter of allotment of Railways land to the Royal Golf and Country Club, Lahore, on nominal price and recommended legal action against those held responsible.
The committee members have found the then minister for railways Lt General Javed Ashraf Qazi, former secretary and chairman Railways Lt General Saeeduz Zafar, ex-general manager Railways Major General Hamid Hassan Butt and former secretary railways Khursheed Alam Khan responsible for this faulty deal, which according to the committee caused Rs 40 billion loss if calculated on the current market price.
The 25-page inquiry report available with The News said, “We (members) strongly feel that the contract was secured by the present lessee through deceit and fraud in connivance with the then high-ups of the Pakistan Railways and is not in accordance with the approved terms or the advertised terms. It is illegal and void, especially in the light of the Supreme Court’s decision on the privatisation of Pakistan Steel Mills.”
The report said the deal was signed in indecent haste the day the executive committee approved the terms and conditions of the deal. The officials and three retired generals who appeared before the committee failed to explain how the entire work, such as approval of the deal, preparation of contract documents and signing of the same, were managed in one day. “It appears that it was actually a private contract between those retired generals and the lessee,” the report said.
It said the inclusion of Phase-II in the deal was also illegal, not based on any expression of interest and was not mentioned in the advertisement. It was to be completed within five years but eight years have lapsed and no revenue has accrued to the Pakistan Railways. The reasons of the delay given by the party are baseless. The Phase 111 is also illegal, it added.
The report said the revenue share of the golf course should be from gross revenue, including everything as approved by the executive committee. According to the Railways record, the lessee has repeatedly committed defaults and its contract is liable to be terminated on this sole ground.
The replies given by Railways ex-employees, ex-chairman and lessee are not satisfactory and did not address the issues at all. The lessee has been occupying the land meant for Phase-II and III without paying any rent. The committee calculated a net present value of the land, which substantiates that it was a very poor deal. The committee agrees with the opinion of the DG Audit Railways that even if we accept the value of the land to be Rs 3.2 billion as was claimed by General Hamid Hassan Butt in his deliberations before the Committee members, even in that case the Railways shall suffer a loss Of Rs 25 billion due to this deal because the rent is not calculated according to the Railways code of engineering which provides that the annual rent should not be less than 15 per cent of the market value of the land. The contract is therefore detrimental to public interest, the committee observed.
This correspondent called General Javed Ashraf Qazi to get his point of view. His wife attended the call on his mobile phone and said he was out for dinner. Meanwhile, talking to The News General (retd) Saeeduz Zafar said he was not in a position to give a comprehensive statement, as he had not read the report yet. But he defended himself and said many important legal issues were involved and this contract was awarded after doing proper homework and following the laws of the land. General Zafar claimed that it was wrong to assume that all those who were running the Pakistan Railways in 2001 were directly responsible. He said a special committee comprising railways officials was set up to monitor the whole process and ensure transparent award of the contract.
He confirmed that he was summoned by the special committee to give his side of the story. General Saeed claimed that this deal was also put before the Public Accounts Committee in 2006 and its members did not find anything wrong in it. He pointed out that a Senate body too had probed the deal and it too failed to find any flaws in it.
Three ex-Army generals found guilty of Rs 25 bn scam
