Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) Information Secretary Sherry Rehman on Wednesday expressed outrage at the unearthing of yet another scandal involving the Industrial Development Bank of Pakistan (IDBP) and influential names from the government.
Describing the revelation as massive, Rehman demanded that the Musharraf government should reveal the names of those allegedly involved in the scandal. "It is mockery of good governance," she charged.
The PPPPP leader pointed out that several politicians and industrialists with the connivance of the IDBP management got written off an extraordinary amount of Rs 7,771.75 million. "This amount is in addition to Rs 22,378.6 million that has been categorised by the bank as stuck up cases," Sherry maintained.
Castigating the government for its indifference to such an important issue, she said that the directives to furnish the list of those involved in the embezzlement was issued during the tenure of former premier Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali.
"The list has been presented to the cabinet. It took a good three years for the government to produce the list," Rehman observed. She wondered if the government's attitude towards the case has anything to do with the fact that Rs 5.862 billion was waived off during General Pervez Musharraf's tenure as president and chief executive.
This is a shocking statistics by any stretch of the imagination, particularly for a regime that has spent millions of taxpayers' rupees abroad in extolling its virtues as a paragon of 'good governance.'
Sherry Rehman also pointed out that government circles have already expressed their inability to deal with the situation, since loans were extended by one group of individuals, and monitoring was done by others.
According to the State Bank of Pakistan report issued to the cabinet, the bank had no mechanism to protect its mortgaged assets from theft and pilferage, and 122 cases have been detected where mortgaged machinery was found stolen.
She wanted to know why loans were not restructured on time, with decisions delayed on one pretext or the other, mainly to avoid responsibility coupled with inadequate flow of information.
"What kind of governance is this," asked Rehman, when lending decisions based on imprudence and cronyism have played a critical role in leading the bank to default.
According to the report, a huge part of the loan portfolio was under litigation, thus seriously affecting the IDBP's earning capacity, she added. Demanding an inquiry into the embezzlement, Sherry Rehman also stressed the need for bringing to justice those who have been trying to impede necessary action thus, bringing the Industrial Development Bank of Pakistan to its current state.
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