KARACHI: Chairman Senate Standing Committee has asked the office of Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) to provide the evidence regarding sufficient banking information shared by China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) with the SECP.
A letter of Senate Secretariat issued to the SECP officials on Tuesday evening said, “the SECP is requested to kindly clarify the points within a period of seven working days on or before December 15, 2017.”
The letter said, “the contents and enclosures SECP submitted have been examined and noted with dismay that thousands of documents have been sent apparently to confuse the Committee, SECP was duty bound to examine these documents and attach brief for sake of convenience but the same has not been done.”
During proceedings of the Committee meeting the stance of SECP was that no report or documents were shared by CSRC while seeking assistance, the letter added.
The letter said the examination of documents now supplied after much resistance reveals that in its very first request letter dated December 16, 2016, CSPR attached considerable evidence which included the interview sheets of the directors of Capital Constructions and Engineering Co Ltd namely Faisal Subhan who not only claimed that his company is actually owned and controlled by Sharif family but also alleged that said family also have control over Habib Rafiq Limited the main contractor of Multan Metro.
The letter claimed, “to our surprise, SECP opted to remain silent on such a serious allegation.” SECP neither referred it to any investigation agency nor said anything in its response to CSRC on such a serious matter. The matter was only referred to FIA after the departure of Zafar Hijazi.
The letter said that CSRC shared sufficient banking information and numerous other documents, mostly in the Chinese language. What efforts were made by SECP to properly assist CSRC in this money laundering crime pointing towards Sharif family, the letter added.
It further questioned that did SECP obtain a translation of the Chinese documents for proper evaluation or not.
The documents sent by CSRC also mentioned China Railway Limited which was admittedly one of the contractors in Multan Metro, what efforts were made to probe this relationship, the committee asked from the SECP in the letter.
It further claimed that very interestingly Khalida Habib in her very initial response to CSRC via her email dated December 26, 2016, pointed out that information asked, and details required fall outside the regulatory ambit of SECP but still SECP opted not to pass it on to the relevant agency.
The letter further asked the procedure through which the SECP examined the huge banking record obtained from the State Bank of Pakistan to check the relevant remittances if any made by Habib Rafiq or Matracon.
