ISLAMABAD, Oct 11: Filing a reference in the Tauqir Sadiq case may become a challenging task for the new chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), mainly because officials have failed to recover anything significant during the lengthy investigation.

An accountability court will hear the case on Oct 21 when the 10-day judicial remand of Sadiq ends. During this hearing, a reference may be filed against the former chief of the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra).

Hearing of the case including debate would formally start after the reference is filed but it will be a challenging task for Chaudhry Qamar Zaman because the record shows that NAB officials have been submitting contradictory statements to the court during the 65-day physical remand of Sadiq.

“Tauqir Sadiq seems to be a shady character but the investigators have failed to make any significant recovery. Besides, the soft footing of the case indicates that the government will lose the case soon after the hearing starts,” said Zafar Baig, a lawyer who has been observing the case.

Despite creating hype that the Ogra scandal involved an amount of Rs82 billion, the NAB has made a recovery of only Rs13.4 million, and that too from a little-known individual, Mian Ashfaq.

The NAB has claimed that Ashfaq was a partner of Sadiq but he has rejected the claim on the grounds that anybody could make such a claim. And to make matters worse, NAB has not submitted any details to the court describing the nature of the relationship between Ashfaq and Sadiq.

An analysis of the data submitted by the NAB shows that the officials had been giving incorrect information about the investigation to the court and reporters.

For instance, an application filed by the NAB on Aug 16 seeking extension of Sadiq’s physical remand said a recovery of Rs2.28bn had been made in terms of an LPG deal by the OGDCL when the accused was chairman of the Ogra. “This amount of more than Rs2.28bn has been recovered in cash from officials and the private players,” the investigation officer in the case, told Dawn, “and Tauqir Sadiq as chairman Ogra had a role in it (the deal).”

While not much detail was provided to the court, NAB officials told reporters outside the court on the same day that a major chunk of the amount was related to the LPG business and recovery had been made from a tycoon.

When asked whether they were referring to Iqbal Z. Ahmed, NAB officials smiled and nodded in the affirmative.

It is strange to note that a major amount of the amount had been deposited in the NAB account but a spokesman for the NAB had said that he was not aware of any amount deposited in the account.

The JJVL group headed by Ahmed claims that it has not given any amount to the NAB. “I was called by the NAB. I went there, recorded my statement and answered to queries,” said Fasih Ahmed, son of Ahmed and director in the JJVL. “But I clearly declined to deposit any money as accusations against us are incorrect and baseless.”

The NAB also told the court at the same hearing that another recovery amounting to Rs16 billion was expected.

In the next hearing on Aug 30, the court was told that Rs3.2bn had been recovered from former chairman of the Ogra.

When asked where the recovered money was being deposited as it had not been deposited in the NAB account, the officials told this correspondent that a major chunk of the recovery was being made in ‘cash’.

But a senior official of the NAB, who was not present in the court, denied that the bureau could receive any amount in cash as recovery. “We are an institution and the recoveries are made in cheques so that formal record can be maintained,” he added.

“It is not like police raiding a gambling den and collecting cash from there.”

The NAB has repeatedly told the court and the reporters that the Ogra scandal involved corruption of up to Rs42bn and was related to increasing gas loss benchmark for the SSGC and the SNGPL.

“This caused a loss to the consumers and national exchequer and the prominent stock broker of Karachi Stock Exchange, Aqeel Karim Dhedi, made billions of rupees in undue profits,” the investigators told reporters outside the court on several occasions.

While Sadiq was in detention, the NAB summoned among others Dhedi, senior officials of Sui Southern Gas Company, lawyers of SNGPL and the SSGC and former chairman of SECP Mohammad Ali but failed to make any recovery. NAB officials told reporters on several occasions that Dhedi was ready to confess but, when contacted, he denied to have entered any deal with the NAB or made a settlement with it. “I have forwarded maybe 5,000 pages to NAB about my accounts and record of shareholdings related to SSGC, including the trade details. I will provide anything as they demand,” he said.

This was acknowledged by NAB officials but they insisted that the ultra-rich stock broker was deceiving them. “Whenever we demand any information he sends us tons of papers in crates. This is because he wants to keep us busy in the paper work and divert our attention,” an official said.

On the other hand, Dhedi said, “NAB people are so confused that they even asked me to confess misdoings.”

With nothing significant deposited in the NAB’s bank account and when the court awarded the NAB only a three-day physical remand of Sadiq on Sept 10, its officials told media that they were not depositing any amount in the account because there was no chairman of their bureau.

Reporters were told on Sept 11 by the officials that the NAB was making book adjustments of all recoveries related to public sector entities, and the information had been shared with media that the SNGPL had paid Rs13bn to the government in terms of high UFG (unaccounted for gas) and late payment surcharges.

While senior officials of the SNGPL, SSGC and OGDC have denied having made any settlement brokered by the NAB, the official attorney and board member of SNGPL, Mirza Mehmood, said the payment of Rs13bn was related to a case being heard by the Lahore High Court, and not the NAB.

“It is a technical matter as the SNGPL had obtained a stay for 2010 and 2011 from high court which allowed it seven per cent UFG. But the decision of the LHC was against the SNGPL in Feb 2013 and the amount it had to pay comes to around Rs13bn,” Mr Mehmood said, “Now we have filed a case in apex court.”

Incidentally, NAB officials took the credit of recovering Rs13bn on the media, but despite the LHC decision against SNGPL, nothing has moved forward because Ogra has only two members and at least three members are required to make a determination for the recovery. Finally at the end of the three-day remand of Sadiq on Sept 13, the NAB asked the accountability court to send him to Adiyala Jail on judicial remand.

While the arguments have yet to start in the case, the NAB investigators are already releasing information to media about new findings in the case — mobile phone record of former chairman of the Ogra.

“We have evidence that political personalities had links with this multi-billion dollar scam,” a NAB official told Dawn and added that the total volume of the amount the scam involves might go up to Rs122bn.

However, it is yet to be seen whether the new chairman will be willing to include the names of prominent persons associated with the previous PPP-led government in the case.—Kalbe Ali