ISLAMABAD: After accepting the nominees of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) on Friday, the apex court finalised the names of the six-member joint investigation team that will investigate the Panama Papers case under the Supreme Court judgement of April 20.
Federal Investigation Agency’s Additional Director General (immigration) Wajid Zia, a grade 21 officer, will head the JIT. Mr Zia belongs to the Police Service and served twice in the Intelligence Bureau and Motorway Police. He also worked in the Economic Crimes Wing of the FIA. While he has limited field experience in the police, he was in the team that probed the Haj scam.
The two officers the court finalised on Friday are Amer Aziz of the SBP and Bilal Rasool of the SECP.
Mr Aziz, a grade 21 officer, he has been out of mainstream banking for around seven years since becoming the managing director of the National Institute of Banking And Finance (NIBAF) on deputation in 2010.
The NIBAF is a training institute for banking and finance professionals. The institute caters to local and foreign professionals and encourages the study of theory and practice of banking and its allied subjects. Mr Aziz also served in the National Accountability Bureau briefly during Gen Musharraf’s government.
Mr Rasool is an executive director of the SECP. He is currently working in the media and corporate communications and translation department at the SECP secretariat.
He joined the Corporate Law Authority, a forerunner of the SECP, in 1993, where he worked as a registrar of the appellate bench and secretary to the commission. A Chevening scholar, he has taught at various universities in Islamabad and is fluent in English, Urdu, Punjabi and Arabic. He also holds a postgraduate diploma from the Institute of Islamic Banking and Insurance and has been instrumental in setting up the first-ever anti-money cell in the SECP.
The nominee from the National Accountability Bureau is Irfan Naeem Mangi, an officer in grade 20, who is currently serving in Quetta as the director general of NAB, Balochistan.
Prior to his posting in Quetta some two weeks ago, he was the NAB DG of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and acting director (operations) of the bureau.
Mr Mangi has expertise in probing white-collar crime and recently completed a national management course for promotion to grade 21.
The members least known to the public are those of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Military Intelligence (MI).
Retired Brig Muhammad Nauman Saeed is the director of one of the wings of internal security in the ISI. He served in the ISI for almost three years and retired from active service in the army in 2016. After passing out from the 71st long course, he joined the Armoured Corps of the Pakistan Army.
Retired Brig Nauman Saeed and Brig Kamran Khurshid from the MI are well known in the army for their expertise in conducting inquiries.
They were also members of an important inquiry commission formed recently.
Published in Dawn, May 06th, 2017
