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WASHINGTON, April 29: General Pervez Musharraf
cannot, and does not, publicly claim that he has
eliminated corruption altogether in Pakistan but
he frequently boasts about cleaning up the top levels
of his military cum civil administration.
Now his own trusted men are exposing these tall
claims by pointing fingers and naming the military
regime’s big guns who are turning out to be the
really big thieves. A few most glaring examples:
When a prominent cabinet minister who was visiting
Washington a few months back, revealed quietly to
me and a friend, the horrifyingly ugly scale of
land grabbing and fake land sale scams going on
in Pakistan, especially in Punjab, we frankly did
not believe him.
We thought the minister was trying to get even with
his uniformed masters for not fulfilling the tall
political promises made to him. But the magnitude
of the scams was such that the minister genuinely
felt concerned and wanted us to write about them,
although as a politician he was not going to raise
his voice publicly and was prepared to serve those
very Generals in every top position.
The minister has now been proved right. Thanks to
one of the more upright Generals in the present
lot, the Corps Commander of Lahore, Lt. General
Shahid Aziz, details of the massive land scams are
emerging.
Our ministerial source says Corps Commander Aziz,
has started a serious investigation against his
predecessor, the last Corps Commander of Lahore,
currently posted in the GHQ, Lt. General Zarrar
Azim, known in the real estate world of Lahore as
General Zarrar Zamin (land).
Early results of this fight between the top military
bulls has revealed that General Zarrar was so deeply
involved in the scam of Lahore Defence Society that
in the price of every plot of land allotted in the
society, a fee of Rs 600,000 (US$10,000) had to
be built-in, almost automatically, meant for the
Corps Commander’s office.
In this scam, it is now being found by the detectives
of the new Corps Commander, that not only the out-going
CC was involved, he was using a junior officer,
Major Lodhi as a front man. This major is related
to General Musharraf’s coup partner and now retired
General Aziz of Kargil fame.
The details of these Defence Society scams are mind
boggling. Thousands of plots of lands are designated
in official files as Defence Society land and these
plots are then sold and re-sold on files. More paper
Housing Societies are registered and approved and
they claim vast tracts of land without owning a
square yard.
According to our source, in Lahore alone there are
12,000 files of plots for Sectors 7, 8, 9 and 10
for which there is no land actually available on
the ground. How many thousands of more such plots
have been sold is not yet known but the probe ordered
by Lt. Gen. Aziz will bring out some facts.
According to a going joke in the Army Mess Circuit,
the last request General Musharraf made to Indian
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Delhi was to give
him 8,000 acres of land from the Indian territory
across the Wagah-Atari border, 30 miles from Lahore,
in return for Kashmir and Siachin, because “my boys
have already sold this land in the files.”
Lahore is not the only Land of Land Scams. What
has happened in Gwadar and Rawalpindi is of no less
import.
The ministerial source said in the Bahria Town of
Rawalpindi and Lahore, thousands of non-existent
plots have been sold by the scheme managers. In
Bahria Town of Lahore for 7,000 available plots
28,000 applications were accepted with deposits.
But in Bahria Town Islamabad/Rawalpindi 77,000 plots
have been sold which require land equivalent to
16 built-up sectors of Islamabad.
“What we are getting into is the Mother of all Scams
because billions upon billions of people’s money
has been collected by these project sponsors while
there is no land to be allotted. How many of these
buyers get back their deposits and when, is the
50 billion rupees question,” the source said.
Incidentally official records of the Ministry of
Defence presented before the National Assembly show
that Pakistan Army has Defence Housing Societies
in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad on an area of only
179,308 Kanals, or 22,500 acres. Pakistan Navy and
Air Force have two housing societies each covering
an area of 712 and 536 acres of land respectively.
Another of Musharraf’s top commanders, Lt Gen. Tariq
Wasim Ghazi, former Corps Commander of Karachi became
notoriously famous in Karachi for similar land scams
in Defence Society, Karachi, including Creek City
and allotment to two special people, Humayun Butt
and Fareed Veerani. Who are these specials and what
is their involvement is being investigated by South
Asia Tribune and will be revealed soon.
The Gwadar land scam has already infuriated the
Baloch leadership and one reason why they are so
violent and non-compromising is how their mother
land is being sold and resold to outsiders after
it was fraudulently bought from them for peanuts.
In Gwadar the Generals and their front men were
quietly told to buy the land from locals much in
advance of announcement of mega projects. Once this
mopping up operation was completed, the projects
were announced and trading of this real estate began,
multiplying the prices by 20 or even 40 times.
The ministerial source said the bigger scandal in
Gwadar has started just recently when Government
has ordered all its banks and State-owned Corporations
to buy land in Gwadar at market prices. Middlemen
have already sold and resold these plots many times
over to different parties to perk up the market
price. “The tax payer will now end up paying the
premium to these land mafias,” the source said.
In a much quieter operation in Lahore the City Government
of Nazim (Mayor) Mian Amer Mahmood claimed on Sunday,
April 24, that it had succeeded in vacating 3,000
kanals (375 acres) of land belonging to schools
from a land mafia, but interestingly he did not
name the mafia. Most of those who read the small
story or who were present when the announcement
was made understood who was involved.
While Corps Commanders of Musharraf are involved
in perpetuating or dismantling these land scams,
one of his pillars of accountability, the former
head of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB),
Lt. General (Retd) Amjad Hussain was himself accused
of massive corruption in the corporation he has
been heading.
This charge of corruption was leveled in the National
Assembly of Pakistan and involved the Fauji Foundation,
undeniably the largest corporate body of Pakistan,
now waiting to take over the largest public sector
company, Pakistan State Oil.
The National Assembly was told last week that a
high-level inquiry had been ordered against the
management of the Fauji Foundation after detection
of huge financial bunglings. General Amjad was facing
the inquiry for selling a sugar mills in a non-transparent
manner at less than the highest bid to a business
enterprise which did not even participate in the
bidding process.
The Assembly was told that the Khoski Sugar Mills
was sold at Rs300 million against a previous bid
of Rs387 million offered by a private party. Defence
Minister Rao Sikandar ordered the inquiry to fix
responsibility on those who violated the financial
procedures and rules by going out of the way to
benefit a favorite firm.
While the above details show that in-service Generals
and Corps Commanders were being investigated for
corruption, another officially announced corruption
case was against the management of the South Asian
Federation (SAF) Games, interestingly consisting
of all military officers headed by Lt. General Arif
Hassan.
The management of SAF Games has been found involved
in financial irregularities to the tune of Rs201
million, which among other charges, include giving
undue benefit to private organizations through "verbal
agreements," Daily Dawn said quoting
an audit report .
The ninth SAF Games management included Chairman
Lt. Gen. Arif Hassan, Chief of staff and chief coordinating
officer Brig. Amjad Javaid, Information and media
director Lt. Col. Syed Mujtaba Tirmizi, Administration
Director Brig. Ahmad Riza Siddiqi, Communications
Director Brig Abid Hussain Bhatti, Technical Director
Lt. Col. (retired) Muhammad Yahya, Procurement Director
Lt. Col. Mansoor Abbas, Information Technology Director
Lt. Col. Umer Farooq, Finance and Marketing Director
Lt. Col. Azhar Dean, Ceremonies Director Brig. Arif
Rasul Qureshi, Protocol Director Brig. Khalid Rasheed
Lodhi and Chief Engineer Lt. Col. Usman Saeed.
The question being asked in all relevant circles
was that even to organize an sporting event, none
of the very well qualified civilians was found to
be suitable and from top to bottom all army men
had been inducted as if it SAF Games were military
exercises. And now these sacred cows have been found
to be involved in irregularities and corruption.
In a military regime, obviously the Corps Commanders
and senior Generals are the top level of Government
and if scams and scandals involving these top men
are officially exposed, some in the National Assembly
and others by leaks to the media by his own people,
how would General Musharraf explain his claims of
eliminating top level corruption. |
