Senate stunned by sugar mills scam

Published November 14, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Nov 13: The Senate on Thursday was stunned by revelations made by two PML-Q lawmakers about what they termed the biggest sugar mills scam hitting Sindh.

Interestingly, no one from the treasury side came out to defend or reject the allegations made by opposition senators.

Jamal Leghari, son of former president Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari, in a very harsh tone asked the authorities to tell who had summoned renowned industrialist Dewan Yousuf recently and ordered him to surrender three of his sugar mills.

Mr Leghari left it to lawmakers to guess the whole story and the reply given by Mr Yousuf.

He said: “This house wants to know how Larkana Sugar Mills was given a hefty loan of Rs350 million without collateral.”

He also questioned the sale of Dadu Sugar Mills for a paltry Rs90 million to a ‘front man’ while the previous government had rejected a bid Rs420 million bid for the mills.

Mr Leghari also said that the privatisation of Qadirpur gas field was first initiated by the Benazir Bhutto government during its second stint in power from 1993 to 1996, but the then president (his father) had intervened and blocked the deal.

“Now again when the same party is in power, although its chairperson is no more at the helm, has once again sprung up to sell off this field for reasons best known to them,” he said, adding it was good that the prime minister had reversed the decision, at least for the time being.

Earlier, Bibi Yasmeen Shah of the same party also objected to the sell-off of the Dadu Sugar Mills at a throwaway price.

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