Politics of Sharif family is doomed
Politics of Sharif family is doomed
Siddiq Baluch
Editor's Blog

QUETTA: Politics of Sharif Family and his camp followers is doomed as they were found guilty when the Supreme Court Bench dismissed their ‘review petitions’ on the other day.

QUETTA: Politics of Sharif Family and his camp followers is doomed as they were found guilty when the Supreme Court Bench dismissed their ‘review petitions’ on the other day.

In other words, they stand convicted on money laundering and failure to prove the money trail in amassing huge wealth. They should wait the day when the trial court will announce punishments for their crime against the State and the people of Pakistan.

It is not possible that the trial court pass a different judgement, in conflict with the verdicts of the Supreme Court Benches on two occasions. The Supreme Court Bench unanimously dismissed the review petitions ending the future political role of the family and Mr. Ishaq Dar in politics. There are bleak chances that Nawaz Sharif will become the Prime Minister of Pakistan for the fourth time.

It is strange that Ishaq Dar had not resigned from his post of Finance Minister to this date and he is still retaining the portfolio even after the clear verdict of the Supreme Court convicting him on the charge of living beyond means.

Strangely, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Division of the Federal Government is not seeking a legal advice from the Law Division on this issue of Ishaq Dar who was found guilty by the Supreme Court. Nor any one from the Cabinet had pointed out this to the Prime Minister and to its legal aides. Presumably, the Finance Minister, Mr. Ishaq Dar, is seeking further humiliation and after this he will resign his post.  Sooner or later, Ishaq Dar and Nawaz Sharif will have to seek bail before arrest once they will appear before the Accountability Court.

Instead, he should be expecting a verdict from the trial court convicting him or awarding a prison sentence with confiscation of his property or part of his property after he was found convicted for living beyond means.

Nawaz Sharif was inducted into politics by the military Junta during the days of General Ziaul Haq. First he was inducted as Finance Minister of Punjab and later on made Prime Minister after manipulation as an alternate leader to late Benazir Bhutto the establishment hated her since the day she returned to Pakistan ending self exile.

Nawaz had shown no interest in politics, develop political skill in due course of time or he made personal efforts to create a constituency, small or big, to retain power or consolidate his political status. All the efforts were done by others, including the state functionaries on his behalf as they were more interested to dislodge Benazir Bhutto.

He was a modest businessman and his family owned only Ittefaq foundry worth millions when he was inducted into politics in early 1980s. From day one, he had shown more and more interest in minting billion than winning heart and mind of the people to consolidate his power as a politician.

Now he and his family own 28 mills and factories besides other business and properties in many parts of the world. Some people claimed that Nawaz Sharif had built his business empire by misusing the State authority, dodging the tax officials or in collaboration with them. Through legal business, it is not possible to amass such a huge wealth. Some opponents claim that he had more than eight billion US dollar assets. The huge wealth is not earned with legitimate means.

His opponents also claimed that he received massive kickbacks and commissions on trade agreements, undertaking mega development projects and disposing of national economic assets and receiving his share in foreign currency abroad—both Europe and the Middle East. All the profitable economic organisations, including banks, were sold to favourites and in return of kickbacks and commission.

Till the last, he made serious efforts to sell both the PIA and Pakistan Steel after conspiring against the both the national organizations. But he failed. There was a massive resistance from the workers of those organizations and also from the people and representatives of Sindh.

All his established cronies were found arguing in favour of privatization of PIA and Pakistan Steel only to appease their corrupt and dishonest leader Nawaz Sharif.

In Balochistan, Nawaz and his entire team, including Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan, was unpopular because of their unpopular or discriminatory decisions. When the 1991 National Finance Commission Award was announced, Balochistan received some additional resources which Nawaz Sharif publicly resented and opposed. He did not stop there, he announced to deduct same amount of money from the share of Balochistan in the national budget. He did implement that threat by denying development funds to Balochistan in 1990s.

Interestingly, Balochistan get an additional amount of Rs 10 billion a year as a compensation of denial of Gas Development Surcharge on the Sui Gas since the natural gas was found in the Bugti Mainland in early 1950s. Late Nawab Bugti launched a massive political campaign and agitated demanding gas development surcharge from the day Sui Gas was discovered in early 1950s. Finally, he deducted the money for years in an attempt to keep Balochistan backward and poor by designs. It was the level of thinking of a national leader holding the post of elected Prime Minister of Pakistan. He represented the bureaucracy and the establishment and not the people in general.

The second main incident was that Nawaz Sharif had ordered closure of Saindak Copper and Gold Plant after it completed the trial production and earned a foreign exchange in millions of dollars. Earlier, he had stopped official funding of the Saindak Copper and Gold Project compelling the Resource Development Corporation (RDC) to dismiss all the employees from the service. He tried to starve over 2000 employees of RDC by denying them normal salaries as employees of the Government organization.  He also ordered the Pakistani banks or the Consortium of Pakistani Banks not to lend money to the RDC for going into commercial production. Thus the precious Gold Mine project was denied fund on the orders from the Chief Executive of the country.

He hated Balochistan to such an extent that he paid a surprise visit to Saindak and inspected the plant along with the Federal Minister Natural Resources, Ch Nisar Ali Khan and ordered on the spot closure of the Saindak Copper and Gold Project. Apparently, he was annoyed that Saindak Project earned a huge amount of money by marketing blister copper produced from the plant.

He did not stop there, he also expelled all the Chinese experts who built the entire plant and ask them to take away the equipment and machinery (all strategic spare parts) kept at Saindak. It was valued more than Rs two billion at that time.  This demonstrated his love for economic development of Pakistan. He did not tolerate a single copper and gold plant operating in Balochistan, the most backward province of the country. He closed it down permanently with deep contempt.

Thus there is no sympathy for Nawaz Sharif in Balochistan as he did injustice to the people during his three constitutional tenures. He was part of the conspiracy in toppling down the Akhtar Mengal Government instigating more than  dozen Ministers to defect. He used the meritorious services of two senior Federal Ministers who Nawaz developed as “Balochistan experts” to deal with intrigues and subversion.