The former president General Pervez Musharraf (Retd) is likely to face a parliamentary scrutiny for allegedly protecting one of his hand-picked envoys, a retired military general, after he was found involved in embezzlement during his posting aboard.
A senior officer of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday that Major General Mustafa Quraishi (Retd) was ambassador of Pakistan to Indonesia in February 2002 and he sold the chancery building. NAB officials did not reveal the exact volume of embezzlement but said that misconduct is established in this particular case when asked by Pakistan Tehreek Insaf's Shafqat Mahmood and Dr Arif Alvi.
According to an inquiry report prepared in 2011 by a ministerial committee whose convener was Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, now Speaker National Assembly, General Quraishi sold out the building against $1.32 million. "I do acknowledge that all the points raised in the report are valid and... a deal was struck in a non-transparent manner," confessed the then Foreign Secretary, Salman Bashir.
During the committee proceedings on Wednesday, the present Secretary Foreign Affairs Azaz Chaudhry also backed the stance of his predecessor and held that this was a very clear case of corruption. Ayaz Sadiq report suggests that the property was disposed of in a non-transparent manner, without advertisement and even the ambassador entered into a binding sale agreement with the buyer without the approval of the ministry. Interestingly, the then Chief Executive of Pakistan General Pervez Musharraf condoned the irregularity and approved the deal after the sale of the building. "General Mustafa was instructor of General Musharraf," NAB officials told the PAC.
After showing dissatisfaction over Foreign Office's and accountability bodies' performance in these scams, Opposition Leader Khursheed Shah-led committee summoned special secretary foreign office and director general NAB to apprise the committee regarding their progress in these cases. The PAC directed the Secretary Foreign Affairs to take actions against the officials and inform the committee secretariat within 24 hours. It only conveyed its displeasure over the sale of two embassy buildings that caused million-dollar losses.
It is alleged that the Foreign Office sold old chancery and embassy residence in Tokyo in 2007 under a swap arrangement on single evaluation causing a loss of 6.3 billion Japanese yen. The evaluation company was chosen without advertisement, the purchase offer was a single offer and no advertisement was made. According to the report, the inter-ministerial committee also approved the bid. Reportedly, Chaudhry Nisar led PAC had stopped short of fixing responsibility on the then-ambassador to, Tokyo Kamran Nayaz, the former Secretary Foreign Affairs Mohammad Riaz Khan, former Special Secretary Foreign Affairs Sher Afgan and the then Secretary Housing and Works and Additional Secretary Finance.
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