Family owns assets worth Rs100 bn: NAB grills PTI’s minister brothers in assets-beyond-income probe

LAHORE: The combined investigation team of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Lahore Monday grilled Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) minister brothers – Khusro Bakhtiar and Hashim Jawan Bakhat – in an ongoing investigation against them for amassing assets beyond known sources of income.

It has been learnt that Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar and Punjab Finance Minister Hashim Jawan Bakhat appeared before the NAB Lahore investigators. They submitted their written statements.

After preliminary review of the statements, the CIT members investigated the two brothers. It has been learnt that the Bureau has started audit of the submitted statements. After cross-examining the statements, NAB is likely to summon the minister brothers again in near future.

The complaint against ministers was filed in 2018. The NAB headquarters had referred the complaint for verification to NAB Multan, which after three-month inquiry, testified the allegations and reported to the headquarters that the complaint was credible enough for conversion into a proper investigation wherein the ministers could be summoned for detailed probe.

In January 2020, NAB converted the inquiry against minister brothers into an investigation. Later, that investigation was shifted from Multan to NAB Lahore. As per complaint verification report of NAB Multan, submitted in Dec 2018, the ministers’ family did a roaring investment in six years of the last decade. It set up four sugar mills, five power generation companies, four trading companies including one in London, one ethanol manufacturing company and two others. “Their agricultural property increased from 5,702 kanals (712 acres) to 7,780 kanals (972 acres) meaning thereby an increase of 2,078 kanals (260 acres) in a short span of time, along with 6-7 residential houses and plots in different cities,” according to the report sent by the regional office to the NAB headquarters.

A couple of properties that Khusro purchased in his name in DHA Lahore were not declared in the nomination papers, according to the report, which further revealed that the “family received a foreign remittance of approx. Rs979 million during 2011-2018.” Current market value of the assets of the ministers’ family (who live in a joint family setting) is more than Rs100 billion, the report revealed.

How did this land-owning family jump into the club of top industrialists remains a mystery. No bank loan was taken for building the empire, the investigators concluded, who noted in the report that further assets could be traced if an inquiry was ordered and the accused were investigated. What has been found so far is on the basis of corporate record, tax declarations, revenue documents, banking information and travel history.

The minister himself is a frequent foreign traveller. In the last five years alone, Khusro went abroad for 189 times, which means more than thrice a month. What he does there will remain unknown until he is taken into custody for investigation. His number of brothers varies in different records. Nadra [National Database and Registration Authority] data shows the minister has only one brother (who is now a provincial minister), whereas the land record suggests he has two brothers.

The rise of the family has been explained in the following lines in the NAB complaint verification report: “From 2006, the family’s assets suddenly showed unnatural increase. An agricultural family from ‘no-where’ became industrialist and started investing amount beyond their known sources of income in corporate sector.”

In the business details, sugar mills merited top mention. They are four. In each case, the minister’s mother and brother are shareholders. One of them set up in 2006 has authorised capital of Rs1 billion. The minister’s mother and brother are its shareholders. Another set up in 2007 has an authorised capital of Rs2 billion; again the minister’s mother and brother (and his wife) are shareholders. Third one was started in 2016; the last one’s founding date is not mentioned. His brother running the sugar mills didn’t figure in Nadra record when investigators checked.

The minister has declared investment of Rs130 million in one sugar mill. He “seems to have a Benami share” in other mills run by the family. “The whole family lives in a joint family system which is evident from their single residential addresses,” reads the NAB report, which has also given addresses.

The four trading companies are in the name of the minister’s brother; one of them was set up in London. Five power generation companies are also in the name of the minister’s brother, who appears in Nadra record as his brother. Hashim Jawan Bakhat owns an ethanol manufacturing company.

As far as the land purchase is concerned, the investigations revealed a total of 260 acres increase in agriculture land since 2004 in addition to 126 acres purchased for one sugar mill.

Out of it, the minister himself got 216 acres “through a mutation of tamleek from his mother and she got that land by way of tamleek from her mother (the minister’s grandmother) and she got it by way of tamleek from her two daughters”, who inherited impugned land after death of their father (the minister’s grandfather).

“Most of these alienation of tamleek took place on the same day and as I see an increase in the assets of subject’s (minister’s) maternal aunt in proceeding years as one of them purchased vehicles worth Rs16 million,” wrote the investigator in the report sent to NAB headquarters.

He further notes: “The whole transaction seems dubious and needs a thorough probe as apparently it seems that a process of ‘layering’ has been adopted to hide the original beneficiary.”

Regarding the undeclared plots of the minister, the investigation report reads: “It is also pertinent to mention here that 269 kanals of agricultural land purchased at …….. in 1991, 36 kanals in ……. 2015 and two plots measuring 5-marla each purchased at DHA Lahore in Nov 2017 were not declared by subject person (the minister) in nomination papers submitted for contesting election 2018.”

Twelve urban properties of the family purchased after 2004 are situated in DHAs of Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi in addition to Gulberg and Lahore Cantt.

Regarding the foreign remittances, the “FBR statements of the family including subject person show inflow of foreign remittances after 2011, which shows that the family has invested and can have properties abroad,” reads the report. The total amounts received through remittances is Rs797 million, of which Rs9 million landed into the minister’s account.

The foreign company, owned by the minister’s brother, had declared assets of Rs1.06 billion in 2018, the FBR statement showed, in addition to the bank accounts in City Bank New York and Emirates NBA Dubai.

In its concluding page, the report says that prior to his joining of national politics, the whole family including the minister’s brothers only owned lands “which was the only source of bread and butter” and after induction into the cabinet in 2004, “assets in the name of non-public office-holder members of the subject’s family i.e. mother (housewife), brother having agriculture as the only one source of income, ballooned to billions of rupees, despite their expenditure on more than 100 foreign trips, contesting elections.” The present worth of the family assets is now over Rs100 billion.