May 13, 2006	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 14, 1427

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HARIPUR, May 12: Former federal minister Gohar Ayub Khan has said he had fulfilled all legal requirements before obtaining a bank loan for his woollen mills in the early ’80s and did not use his political influence.

“Had I used political influence I would have stopped liquidation of my woollen mill because I was then speaker of the National Assembly in 1992,” he said, while speaking to newsmen after inauguration of an annual three-day Jashn-e-Hazara festival here on Friday.

Commenting on a report of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) meeting of Thursday regarding the bank loan which he had got from the Industrial Development Bank for his defunct Rehana Woollen Mills in Khalabat Township, he termed the observations of the PAC misleading and against facts.

He said that he got a loan of Rs16.6 million sanctioned from the IDB in 1982 for setting up a blanket manufacturing unit, the Rehana Woollen Mills, after fulfilling all legal requirements.

He said that the machinery for it was imported from Europe.

He said that since the market rates of raw material had shot up manifold and the then government imposed heavy duties, the mills administration had to close down the mill after some time because it was not feasible to run it as it had become a loss-bearing unit.

Mr Gohar said the bank management moved the court for recovery of the loan and got the mills liquidated from the Peshawar High Court in 1992 and the IDB recovered its loan from the liquidation of property of Rehana Woollen Mills.

However, he claimed he and other share-holders suffered a loss of millions in the wake of closure and liquidation of the unit.

To a question, the former water and power minister of the Nawaz Sharif cabinet said that he had not obtained loan under political influence because he was neither elected MP nor part of Majlis-i-Shoora of the Zia regime, rather his political rival Raja Sikandar Zaman was member of the central Shoora at the time.

“I would have used political influence if I was in a position to stop liquidation of the mills as I was then speaker of the National Assembly in 1992,” he said, adding that it was totally a fair deal and in accordance with the law.