Re: Imran Khan's interview with Najam Sethi
I am not an Imran cult follower and would like to keep things as neutral as possible.. I have not seen the minutes of the investment board meetings so I will base my comments only on available disclosed information.
1) I never heard Khawaja Asif blaming IK for misappropriating Zakat money. He accused IK that the money was not invested in a proper way which was was subsequently proven.. money invested in a private company belonging to a board member (conflict of interest) on a personal guarantee without obtaining any audited accounts of this non-quoted, non-tradable company. Any accounting fool will tell you that this itself is a gross violation of public trust.
2) All the board members were personally selected by IK. I know this because I know some of these members. Mostly some large donors were invited to join the board. I personally believe that IK knew and endorsed this investment.. and IK not knowing about this investment is a total BS. This is my personal opinion and I don't have board minutes to prove it. But let's assume that he did not know about the investment. For the Chairman of any board this is not an acceptable excuse that he did not know abut board decisions. If you can't take responsibility of bad board decisions.. or you are not able to stop such decisions on time.. you don't deserve to be the Chairman. He is aspiring to become the Prime Minister of the country. Tomorrow he will shift all the blame of any mis appropriation on his sub ordinates and try to act like an angel. This is a very dangerous tendency.
3) The investment is a bad investment.. money is stuck for more than 5 years. In spite of all the public debate for last one year the personal guarantee could not be honored. Now IK needs one more year to execute the personal guarantee.. He plans to go in litigation.. not knowing that there are more than 100,000 cases lying in Dubai courts which are not being heard on default by property developers.. nothing will happen to these cases as the money is already lost in speculation. The chances of getting this personal guarantee en cashed are very slim. For all practical reasons and in the opinion of the auditors this money is lost due to the stupidity of SKMH management-board of management-Imran Khan.
4) I appreciated the gesture of Imran Khan that he is personally guaranteeing this amount with his personal assets. I don't suspect Imran Khan's intentions and I believe he will keep his promise. I also believe that his intention of investing the SKMH funds in property speculation in dubai were to gain maximum benefits for the institution. But it does not absolve SKMH management and particularly the Chairman for not being able to stop this transaction which was made in clear violations of accepted principals of trust.. without taking in to account the gross conflict of interest which has happened with this transaction.
Doesn't matter if Imran is an angel and I am a pathetic liar.. Gross irregularity has happened in SKMH where a huge investment was made despite the conflict of interest. The responsibility of this gross irregularity lies with the Chairman of the Board SKMH..
**ISLAMABAD: **Khawaja Asif, a senior leader of the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N), alleges that Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan lost a huge amount of money which was donated to his social welfare hospital, Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital & Research Centre, in a real estate gamble.
Asif, accompanied by two other PML-N leaders, held a press conference in Islamabad on Wednesday and handed out hard copies of “evidence” against Khan’s investments.
The leader said that a total of $4.5 million were invested abroad, which was “in fact the money gained from sadqaat, fitrana and zakat… This was the money of the Pakistani nation which went abroad.”
“In British Virgin Islands, a shell company was first registered. That company transferred money into a company, HBG in Dubai, then HBG bought shares of Sugarland company worth $3 million. During 2009-2010, Sugarland declared losses and in the coming two years, it faced 64% losses. Here, the money of Shaukat Khanum invested by Imran Khan also faced a loss but it was not shown,” Asif said while referring to the documents he had distributed.
The leader mentioned the Double Shah scam and said that Double Shah would at least ask for investments and not for donations, and his business was more transparent than this one. “Imran Khan doesn’t get tired of unleashing allegations against the entire world, but he should first look at himself too.”
Asif questioned Khan that if the investment was so safe and profitable, then why did he not put in his own money rather than that of Shaukat Khanum. “This is not a scandal of the PTI, this was a play of Shaukat Khanum’s money… Shaukat Khanum has not published its balance sheets, the last one available is from 2010, which we have provided to you.
“Imran Khan should reply himself or someone from the trust should reply. Who knows what game Imran Khan is playing with the people’s money and where he’s investing the donations,” he added.
‘Shaukat Khanum workers are Khan’s friends or family’
Asif also alleged that those working at Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital are either Khan’s friends or family members. “Another important person is Imtiaz Haideri. He is a member of Imran Khan’s trust, is a chief executive in Dubai and a chief executive in British Virgin Islands too.”
“In this party (PTI), they are all real estate businessmen or are involved in collecting donations. There is this singer as well, who also collects donations. The whole leadership is involved in the real estate business, they are all gamblers,” said Asif adding that he is providing proof from Shaukat Khanum’s own papers.
“We are not speculating or assuming this. We have handed you all the balance sheets too on which all the investments are stated.”
“During a Public Accounts Committee meeting, I asked NAB without mentioning any name that if a social welfare organisation is involved in such gambling investment, does your law allow them to catch them. They told me yes, they would take action… When the time comes, we will also go to the court.”
“We know it hurts the credibility of leaders before the elections, but we are trying to show the real face (of Imran Khan) on how he is managing the donations,” Asif added.
“Imran Khan took some wrong decisions and the trust should not bear the losses. The loss should come on his personal balance sheet.”
I don't know about you but Asif was calling Imran a gambler who invested zakaat money in illegal companies and even questioned his intentions as he didn't think Imran would personally invest in such companies. As i said before, Imran said that he was not aware of this investment and you claim that he was fully aware of that investment so i can't say who is right. At the end of the day, it could be case of risky investment that could have been avoided but it was NOT GAMBLING and nothing illegal about it.