Musharraf's
Men Purchased $12 Billion, Overpaying $430m to Favorites
By
Maryam Hussain
ISLAMABAD:
Quietly, and almost un-noticed by any leading political or economic
expert, Musharraf’s hand-picked Finance Minister last week
tabled data in the National Assembly which is not just mind-boggling
but astronomically scandalous and intriguing.
In
5 years the Parliament was told, the Finance Ministry purchased
US$ 15 billion (Yes Fifteen Billion Dollars) from the black market
in Pakistan and no one knows where it has gone.
And
the scandal is that the Ministry admitted that it had lost, or
over-paid, a massive Rs 25 billion (over US$430 million) in these
hush-hush transactions to unknown money changers and foreign exchange
dealers.
Finance
Minister Shaukat Aziz was repeatedly asked at his news conference
on Friday to explain the Rs 25 billion loss but he repeatedly
ignored the question and blamed journalists for being too "illiterate"
because they were asking stupid questions. He also offered to
start a tuition program for these journalists. The Minister faced
these questions when he held the Press conference to release the
Economic Survey of Pakistan in Islamabad.
Almost
$12 billion was purchased between 2000 and 2004, the entire period
of General Musharraf’s tenure, Omar Ayub Khan, Parliamentary
Secretary for Finance Ministry, said in response to questions
put by the Opposition MPs.
Despite
repeated demands from agitating parliamentarians the Secretary
gave no details about the sellers and at what rates these dollars
were purchased from the open market. It is obvious that different
dealers were given different rates without any transparency and
open bidding.
The
amount of dollars purchased from the market was more than even
the total Foreign Exchange reserves of the country that now stand
at $12 billion.
The
Auditor General of Pakistan had revealed for the first time in
his report on accounts of SBP that Central Bank had actually purchased
dollars by giving extra money to money changers that had led to
a big financial loss of Rs 25 billion to the taxpayers.
In 1999-2000, $2.5 billion were bought.
Next fiscal the figure was $2.9 billion, followed by an increased
$3.9 billion the year after, topped up by $4.5 billion in 2003-2004.
In 1999-2000, Pakistan suffered loss
of Rs6.2 billion for the purchase of $2.5billion. In 2000-2001,
taxpayers over-paid Rs9.8 billion to money changers when government
bought $2.9 billion from the open market. In 2001-2002, the loss
to national exchequer was recorded at Rs2.5 billion when $3.9
billion were purchased. In 2002-2003 money changers were given
Rs1.7 billion more than the market price.
Some mute voices were raised in the
Parliament. MMA MNA Mr Menthi wondered that the figures of total
dollars purchased from money changers by Musharraf regime showed
that Shaukat Aziz and company had actually bought all the dollars
now lying with the SBP foreign reserves section from the open
market for which the taxpayers were made to pay Rs25 billion.
But the disclosures raise a plethora
of questions. These would include:
-
Who are the beneficiaries of these billions upon billions of taxpayer’s
money?
- Are there any Generals or their kith and kin involved in these
transactions which, without doubt, made money changing the biggest
business activity in Pakistan during the Musharraf regime?
- Where are these dollars, if the total reserves are just $12
billion? Where have they been spent?
- Where are the billions of dollars which have come into the economy
under various normal routes, like exports, remittances and direct
aid by the US?
- How were the payments in rupees shown in the Budget books as
Rs 25 billion is an extra-ordinary amount and should be reflected
in budget-making, revenue and expenditure accounts?
- What has been the impact of releasing an additional Rs 25 billion
in the economy on inflation, rupee-dollar exchange rate and domestic
investments?
These
and many other questions remain unanswered as Finance Minister
Shaukat Aziz goes into another exercise of budget making and bombarding
the people with high sounding stats.
The
more intriguing question is why is no one raising all these questions
and does it mean that the budgetary figures and statistics which
Shaukat Aziz is frequently producing before the media are all
cooked up and fudged.
It is also not clear what kind of
explanations have the Finance Ministry offered for these heavy
purchases to the IMF and the World Bank and whether they are satisfied
with the deals.
Whatever the answers, it is now clear
that Musharraf and his top men do not have to indulge into any
small-time corruption when under just one sector, they have an
open-ended license to make as much money as they want and provide
financial benefits to whoever they want.
All attempts by Opposition MPs to
get the lists of beneficiaries have been stonewalled by the Government
so far, indicating that some big and known names may be shielded.
When
details of these multi-billion dollar deals come out, it appears
all corruption scandals of the politicians would look like child
play.
