Former Chief Minister Sindh Syed Qaim Ali Shah appeared before Comb-ined Invest-igation Team (CIT) of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Wednesday in connection with multibillion rupees fake bank accounts and money laundering scam. According to NAB officials, Shah was questioned by NAB's CIT regarding the Thatta and Dadu Sugar Mills cases for over 40 minutes. According to joint investigation team (JIT) formed by the Supreme Court last year, both the sugar mills were acquired by Omni Group, allegedly owned by former President Asif Ali Zardari and his aides, from the government of Sindh at throwaway prices without taking over their liabilities.
Sources said the former chief minister allegedly sold Dadu Sugar Mill and Thatta Sugar Mill at throwaway prices, causing a huge loss to the government exchequer and benefiting Naudero Sugar Mill in the process. The official said that investigators questioned Shah with respect to these two cases and also handed over a questionnaire to him.
"Shah was asked to submit a reply to the questionnaire before NAB Rawalpindi CIT within 10 days," he said, adding that CIT will review the answers asked during 40-minute-long probe and the replies given in the questioners as per law and then it would decide whether or not it should summon Shah again. Talking to reporters after his appearance before the NAB team, Syed Qaim Ali Shah said that during his decades-long political career he never had any case of corruption or misuse of authority against him nor did he ever receive any such kind of notices. "The NAB notice which I received a few days ago have badly affected me and I'm touchy about it," he said.
He said that the notice he received did not mention any specific allegation against him. "I told NAB investigators that this is a 20 years old case and some other characters and people might also be connected with it," he said, adding that the attitude of investigators was positive.
Farhatullah Babar, a senior leader of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) said that NAB has become a political institution and is being used for political engineering. Following the death of former director of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and ex-member Capital Development Authority (CDA) who was facing a NAB case, Chairman NAB former Justice Javed Iqbal should either resign or go on long leave.
As per the JIT report, the Sindh government had allegedly sold Thatta Sugar Mill to Omni Group for Rs 127.5 million in 2013 while its market value was said to be Rs 716.11 million. Similarly, Dadu Sugar Mill was also a property of the Sindh government and it was acquired by the same group in 2008 at Rs 90 million against its original price of Rs 626.70 million.
The district administration made strict security arrangements on the occasion with heavy deployment of police and Rangers personnel. Police blocked all roads leading to old NAB headquarter to forestall political workers' access to even adjacent areas of the bureau office.