Appointment of SECP commissioner: NAB likely to initiate another inquiry against Khaqan

ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is likely to initiate another inquiry against former Prime Minister, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, ex -Secretary Finance, Arif Khan and other officials of Finance Ministry for appointing a Commissioner in Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) allegedly in violation of prescribed rules.

According to documents, submitted to NAB, the appointment of Shauzab Ali as Commissioner in SECP was made through “abuse of process and merit” on March 27, 2018. He has, however, claimed that at the time of his appointment he had the required qualification and experience of more than 25 years as mandated by the advertisement and was working for the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

NAB has also been told that “the Commissioner made a false statement regarding his qualification. In his application, he stated that he took his Chartered Accountancy exams in 1997 and was eligible for the post of the Commissioner. Whereas he passed his CA exams on January 29,2000 and was given the membership number 3049 by the Institute of Chartered Accountant of Pakistan (ICAP).

The Commissioner deliberately withheld this fact from the Ministry of Finance to get this slot”.

Furthermore, one of the condition precedents for the candidature of the Commissioner was resignation, retirement or discontinuation from the previous held position in any government, autonomous or semi-autonomous body. However, the Commissioner used to work in ADB as Unit Head Finance after getting selected for the slot in SECP. He neither resigned from his previous position nor intimated this fact to the Ministry of Finance.

In addition to this, Ministry of Finance also wrote a letter to ADB to ascertain the facts of the matter but “no answer was received from the Bank”.

The documents indicate that the officials of Ministry of Finance who processed the shortlisting, interview and preparing summary were either unaware of the facts or ignored this aspect.

The sources said, NAB will initiate an inquiry into the case after going through all the record shared with it.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021