ISLAMABAD, Aug 16: People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) Senator Enver Baig on Wednesday claimed that rich and big industrialists, including some influential government officials, had got loans worth Rs22.24 billion written off from five major banks in the year 2005.

Speaking at a news conference at the cafeteria of the Parliament House, he regretted that on the one hand the banks had written off huge loans obtained by rich and influentials while on the other the House Building Finance Corporation (HBFC) had placed full-page advertisements in the press containing the names of 107 loan defaulters belonging to Haripur and Abbottabad and issuing them auction notices.

Mr Baig said the total liability of all these 107 persons was only Rs14.7 million and these poor people had obtained loans ranging from Rs60,000 to Rs250,000. He demanded that the government should write off the loans of all the HBFC defaulters of less than Rs250,000 as it had done in the case of rich mill owners.

Giving details, Mr Baig said according to the bank statements for the year 2005, the National Bank of Pakistan had written off Rs4.7 billion loans, United Bank Rs4.76 billion, Habib Bank Rs6.6 billion, Muslim Commercial Bank Rs1.03 million and the Allied Bank Rs5.13 billion.

The PPP senator said these banks had written off loans of several big industrialists including Phalia Sugar Mills, owned by the Chaudhris of Gujrat; Punjab Road Transport Corporation, Fateh Textile Mills, Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Mohammad Yusuf, Crescent Group of Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (Erra) chairman Altaf Saleem; Sehgal Group, Rose Textile and Adamjee Group.

Mr Baig said former State Bank governor Ishrat Hussain had also disclosed on July 26, 2003, that the banks had written off a total of Rs23.5 billion loans from 1999 to 2003. Moreover, he said, the managing director of the Industrial Development Bank (IDB) had disclosed in a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee that Rs44 million had been outstanding against Rehana Woollen Mills owned by Gohar Ayub Khan and family since 1982.

He criticised the attitude of Senate Chairman Mohammadmian Soomro for not giving him an opportunity to speak on the issue on the floor of the house. He said he wanted to name all the big defaulters on the floor of the house, but the chairman did not allow him to speak and switched his mike off.