FIA halts Pak Steel corruption investigations on political pressure

[Naveed Yaseen]

AAMIR MAJEED
KARACHI (November 12 2009): The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has stopped investigation into corruption cases of Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) owing to some political reasons. These cases are related to corruption committed during the tenure of the sacked PSM chairman Moen Aftab Sheikh.

The Agency had been aggressively investigating into corruption cases involving around Rs 22 billion on the directives of the Interior Ministry. It has suddenly halted investigations due to pressure from some influential political figures, sources in FIA Crime-Circle told Business Recorder Wednesday.

The sources said the agency had questioned steel dealers to know the reasons behind sheep decline in the profits of PSM and a loss of Rs 22 billion to the national exchequer during the period of the sacked chairman. Although, the agency collected some meaningful evidence from some dealers, it could not continue the investigation process at the same pace, the sources maintained.

FIA also detected irregularities in the issuance of dealership certificates to a large number of wholesalers, the sources said, adding that the sacked chairman had granted about 350 dealership authority letters, out of which 158 belonged to Karachi. The mass scale distribution of the certificates had resulted into a kind of market monopoly, they added.

They said the dealers created hurdles during investigation process by lowering the sale of the national institution's products in protest against the government policies towards them. Up to some extent, they are able to win the favour of some influential persons, who in turn have forced the government to review its policies, they added.

It may be mentioned the FIA received information that the administration of the sacked chairman Moen Aftab Sheikh and his teams received bribes amounting to Rs 280 million for approval of new dealership certificates. They were also found to be involved in some other corrupt practices such as award of tenders and allocation of products quotas. However, Anwar Qureshi, the Investigation Officer (IO) of the case insisted that the agency had not stopped investigation.

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