Musharraf ‘sold’ gifted property for peanuts

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

* Report charges Maj Gen ® Hussain with misusing authority as envoy to sell Chancery, ambassador’s residence in Jakarta

By Tahir Niaz

ISLAMABAD: The government-owned Chancery building and the ambassador’s residence in Jakarta – gifted by Indonesian President Soekarno to Pakistan – were sold out in 2002 on a directive by then chief executive General Pervez Musharraf in a completely non-transparent manner and in violation of instructions by the Foreign Affairs Ministry, according to official documents.

A report – compiled by the Foreign Affairs Ministry and available with Daily Times –says the deal was struck with an aim to extract massive kickbacks. It says when former Pakistani ambassador to Indonesia Maj Gen ® Mustafa Anwar Hussain signed a binding agreement on February 18, 2002, for the sale of the Chancery, an inter-ministerial committee authorised to finalise the deal was yet to consider the proposal for the sale of properties. Hussain even asked the ministry to “regularise” the sale deal – which he made in his own capacity – to “sidestep heavy penalties”.

The ministry told Hussain that he was not the competent authority in striking such a deal without the approval of the inter-ministerial committee, and asked him to refrain from finalising agreement. However, he went ahead with the sale, claiming he had acted in line with “a directive by the chief executive on the sale of both properties”.

Hussain not only defied repeated instructions by the ministry, but also hired the services of his Indonesian wife’s company through a written agreement to conclude the sale deal for the Chancery and the ambassador’s residence.

Citing then defence attaché Col Khalid Mehmood, the report says that Hussain and one of his friends extracted massive kickbacks in the sale of the properties in Jakarta.

The ministry – in a summary on March 30, 2002 – asked Musharraf to recommend that the ambassador be instructed to immediately annul the agreement and take full responsibility for the consequences. While in an inquiry report, dated April 16, 2002, a committee said there was a basis to believe that procedural irregularities had taken place, it called for the chief executive’s approval for the agreement.

On September 18, 2002, the inter-ministerial committee approved the sale of the ambassador’s residence to Era Victoria for $2.28 million.