KARACHI The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Monday submitted the interim chargesheets in corruption cases against some officials of the Pakistan Steel Mill (PSM).
The FIA had registered the cases against PSM Managing Director Rasool Bux Phulpoto, former chairman Mueen Aftab Sheikh, former director (commercial) Sameen Asghar and three directors, as well as chief executive officer of the Abbas Steel Group, on Dec 23, 2009 for allegedly misusing their powers with criminal intentions causing a loss of Rs22 billion to the PSM. The FIA also registered three more corruption cases against Mueen Aftab Sheikh and Sameen Asghar, and Capt Rasheed Abro of Nobel Resources. The investigation officers filed four interim charge-sheets against the suspects in the special anti-corruption court on Monday.
According to the main charge-sheet, an inquiry (95/09) initiated against the suspects found that the PSM had suffered an approximate loss of over Rs22 billion on account of a large number of acts of criminal omission and commission allegedly by Mueen Aftab Sheikh in collusion with the co-accused during his tenure as chairman of the mills from May 26, 2008 to Aug 18, 2009.
A huge portion of the loss incurred on account of the sale of finished goods at low prices despite a high cost of raw material and other related manipulations. The price fixation committee met twice during January 2009 to August 2009 and decided to increase the prices of finished goods in general and billets in particular as high premium (difference of prices) was prevailing in the market, but neither the prices were increased nor the minutes were prepared, thus the loss caused during this period was Rs518.635 million. The PSM marketing department proposed an increase in the billets prices which was considered by the price fixation committee but Sameen Asghar vehemently opposed the proposal.
The chargesheet further stated that the prices of one PSM product were reduced to 35 per cent in November 2008 to match the international market rates but were not increased when the international market rates went up. Thus, in respect of this product alone, a loss amounting to Rs3.655 billion was caused to the PMS.
According to the PSM sales policy, the suspects were bound to give priority to consumers over trader dealers to save 1.5 per cent commission but trader dealers were favoured and the PSM had to pay a sum of Rs38.1 million as the dealers' commission.
Mueen Aftab Sheikh was associated with the Abbas Steel Group as consultant before he assumed the charge of PSM chairman and after taking the charge, he turned down a large number of requests from different consumers to deliver 100 per cent premium products of PSM to the group fraudulently between December 2008 and April 2009. Since there was a huge difference between the prices of the PSM products and those available in the open market, the act of favouring the group creating its monopoly and enabled it to make wrongful gains of millions of rupees.
Besides, the trader dealership was also given to the group in violation of the prescribed PSM rules in November 2008.
The chargesheet said that Mueen Aftab Sheikh, Rasool Bux Phulpoto and Sameen Asghar abused their official positions with common objective, criminal intention and fraudulently caused pecuniary wrongful losses to the PSM and corresponding wrongful gain to Malik Bashir, Khalid Khan and Sabeen Sakina, the directors/CEOs of four companies of the Abbas Steel Group.
A case (FIR 39/2009) was registered against the suspects under Sections 406, 409, 420, 468, 471, 109/34 of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1947 at the FIA Crime Circle police station Karachi.
Main Babar Ali and Rizwan Mustafa of Shalimar Steel; Mohammad Ikhlaq, Mohammad Azeem, Munawwar Maqbool, Nazimuddin, Riaz Hussain, Saif-ul-Haq, Sohail, Niaz Ali, Raza and Braham Khan of the PSM; Ishtiaq Hussain of Jabbar Steel; Irshad of Razzaq Steel; Abbas Ali of Ameer Ali Steel; Saeed and Mohammad Mansoor (investigation officer) were placed as prosecution witnesses in the interim chargesheet.
Mueen Aftab Sheikh has been shown as the absconding accused while the remaining suspects are on bail.
Three more interim charge-sheets were filed against Mueen Aftab Sheikh, Sameen Asghar and Rasheed Abro in as many cases. The charge-sheets said that though the PSM had 867 metric tons of imported met coke, it management had singed an agreement with the Noble Resources, Singapore, in September 2008 to purchase over 685 metric tons of met coke at a high cost. The PSM commercial department had also failed to justify the agreed rates and quantity.
It stated that the suspects had deliberately shown a shortage of coal and despite having knowledge of a decline in the prices of coal in the international market, they imported 50,000 metric tons of coal from Australia, causing a Rs4.9 billion loss to the national exchequer.
The suspects were also accused of not considering the advice of the board of directors that a high-level committee be formed to bargain the met coke and coal price.
Three cases (36/09, 37/09 and 38/09) were registered at the FIA's Crime Circle police station Karachi against the suspects under Section 409 of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1947.
