In 5 years the Parliament
was told, the Finance Ministry purchased US$ 15 billion
(Yes Fifteen Billion Dollars) from the black market in
Pakistan and no one knows where it has gone.
And the scandal is that
the Ministry admitted that it had lost, or over-paid,
a massive Rs 25 billion (over US$430 million) in these
hush-hush transactions to unknown money changers and foreign
exchange dealers.
Finance Minister Shaukat
Aziz was repeatedly asked at his news conference on Friday
to explain the Rs 25 billion loss but he repeatedly ignored
the question and blamed journalists for being too "illiterate"
because they were asking stupid questions. He also offered
to start a tuition program for these journalists. The
Minister faced these questions when he held the Press
conference to release the Economic Survey of Pakistan
in Islamabad.
Almost $12 billion was purchased between 2000 and 2004,
the entire period of General Musharraf’s tenure,
Omar Ayub Khan, Parliamentary Secretary for Finance Ministry,
said in response to questions put by the Opposition MPs.
Despite repeated demands from agitating parliamentarians
the Secretary gave no details about the sellers and at
what rates these dollars were purchased from the open
market. It is obvious that different dealers were given
different rates without any transparency and open bidding.
The amount of dollars purchased
from the market was more than even the total Foreign Exchange
reserves of the country that now stand at $12 billion.
The Auditor General of
Pakistan had revealed for the first time in his report
on accounts of SBP that Central Bank had actually purchased
dollars by giving extra money to money changers that had
led to a big financial loss of Rs 25 billion to the taxpayers.
In 1999-2000, $2.5 billion
were bought. Next fiscal the figure was $2.9 billion,
followed by an increased $3.9 billion the year after,
topped up by $4.5 billion in 2003-2004.
In 1999-2000, Pakistan
suffered loss of Rs6.2 billion for the purchase of $2.5billion.
In 2000-2001, taxpayers over-paid Rs9.8 billion to money
changers when government bought $2.9 billion from the
open market. In 2001-2002, the loss to national exchequer
was recorded at Rs2.5 billion when $3.9 billion were purchased.
In 2002-2003 money changers were given Rs1.7 billion more
than the market price.
Some mute voices were raised
in the Parliament. MMA MNA Mr Menthi wondered that the
figures of total dollars purchased from money changers
by Musharraf regime showed that Shaukat Aziz and company
had actually bought all the dollars now lying with the
SBP foreign reserves section from the open market for
which the taxpayers were made to pay Rs25 billion.
But the disclosures raise
a plethora of questions. These would include:
- Who are the beneficiaries
of these billions upon billions of taxpayer’s money?
- Are there any Generals
or their kith and kin involved in these transactions which,
without doubt, made money changing the biggest business
activity in Pakistan during the Musharraf regime?
- Where are these dollars,
if the total reserves are just $12 billion? Where have
they been spent?
- Where are the billions
of dollars which have come into the economy under various
normal routes, like exports, remittances and direct aid
by the US?
- How were the payments
in rupees shown in the Budget books as Rs 25 billion is
an extra-ordinary amount and should be reflected in budget-making,
revenue and expenditure accounts?
- What has been the impact
of releasing an additional Rs 25 billion in the economy
on inflation, rupee-dollar exchange rate and domestic
investments?
These and many other questions
remain unanswered as Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz goes
into another exercise of budget making and bombarding
the people with high sounding stats.
The more intriguing question
is why is no one raising all these questions and does
it mean that the budgetary figures and statistics which
Shaukat Aziz is frequently producing before the media
are all cooked up and fudged.
It is also not clear what
kind of explanations have the Finance Ministry offered
for these heavy purchases to the IMF and the World Bank
and whether they are satisfied with the deals.
Whatever the answers, it
is now clear that Musharraf and his top men do not have
to indulge into any small-time corruption when under just
one sector, they have an open-ended license to make as
much money as they want and provide financial benefits
to whoever they want.
All attempts by Opposition
MPs to get the lists of beneficiaries have been stonewalled
by the Government so far, indicating that some big and
known names may be shielded.
When details of these multi-billion
dollar deals come out, it appears all corruption scandals
of the politicians would look like child play.
