Hearing put off until next weekafter Dr Asim’s no-show

Prison authorities claim former minister ‘seriously ill’, advised by doctors to rest

The accountability court trying Dr Asim Hussain and others in two corruption references put off the hearing until next week because the former federal minister and his attorneys did not appear in court on Saturday.

An application was submitted in court on behalf of the prison authorities claiming that since Hussain was “seriously ill”, it was not possible to bring him to court. The application said doctors had advised the former minister to rest, following which the hearing was adjourned until January 21.

On March 5 last year the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had filed a reference against Hussain claiming Jamshoro Joint Venture Limited (JJVL), a private company, was allowed to process gas from five fields in lower Sindh without conducting an open auction or signing agreements and without following other mandatory procedures.

These actions, according to the investigators, caused a loss of more than Rs17 billion to the national coffers. Zuhair Siddiqui, Azeem Iqbal, Shoaib Warsi, Yusuf Jamil Ansari, Malik Usman, former OGDCL MD Basharat Mirza, Zahid Bakhtiar, Iqbal Ahmed and other JJVL officials were also accused in this case.

In another reference, Hussain was accused of committing corruption of Rs462 billion during his tenure as federal petroleum minister. Investigators claimed that he created artificial shortage of gas, which resulted in urea fertiliser prices skyrocketing from Rs850 to Rs1,830. The government then had to provide a subsidy on urea import, causing a loss of Rs450 billion to the national exchequer between 2012 and 2013.

Hussain, currently the Karachi chief for the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), is also accused of misappropriating Dr Ziauddin hospitals' funds as chairman of the Dr Ziauddin Trust. Investigators claimed that the former minister provided shelter and treatment to target killers and terrorists at the hospitals.

His co-accused in the case include Karachi Mayor Waseem Akhtar, other Muttahida Qaumi Movement leaders Rauf Siddiqui and Saleem Shehzad, as well as Anis Qaimkhani, now a leader of the Pak Sarzameen Party, the PPP's Qadir Patel and Pasban chief Usman Moazzam.

Last Saturday the accountability court had adjourned the hearing of the gas shortage case for a week after the investigating officer said the former minister could not be brought to court owing to his surgery. Though the other accused were present in court, the hearing was put off without recording their statements.

Besides Hussain, the other accused include former petroleum secretary Ejaz Chaudhry, former Karachi Docks Labour Board CEO Safdar Hussain, former Karachi Development Authority directors Syed Athar Hussain and Masood Haider Jaffery, and Ziauddin group's finance director Abdul Hameed.