Senate panel may go for forensic audit of Multan Metro bus

ISLAMABAD: While showing complete dissatisfaction over the probe held by the SECP so far on alleged scam into Multan Metro bus project, the Senate Standing Committee on Finance decided to explore option of conducting forensic audit if the regulator continued the practice of non cooperation to ensure fair investigation.

“I am not satisfied with the SECP so we might take some stern actions,” said Chairman Senate Standing Committee on Finance Saleem Mandviwalla while chairing meeting here at Parliament House on Wednesday. The Acting Chairman SECP told the Senate panel that neither he nor any of the Commissioners in the SECP possessed access to the documents related to the alleged corruption / money laundering in Metro bus Multan.  The Committee was told that the issue was raised after inquiry was initiated by the regulatory authority of China about suspicious inflows in the accounts of a company.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) initiated investigations against the Chinese company Jiangsu Yabaite Technology Co. Ltd (Yabaite), in 2016, while Yabaite, told the Chinese regulators that it received the amount after executing work at metro bus project Multan.

On the basis of this information, a CSRC delegation visited Pakistan in December 2016 and also approached SECP at that time officially seeking assistance over the information provided by Yabaite.

The SECP has now forwarded the case to FIA on August 30 2017 after certain fake letters were related to CM Punjab and two Senators were presented by Yabaite to the Chinese regulator.

Chairman of the Committee Senator Saleem Mandviwla raised a series of questions from the SECP team and inquired if the documents provided by the CSRC revealed statement by one of the chief executive of Capital Engineering whether the firm (Capital Engineering) was owned by Shahbaz Sharif, CM Punjab.

Incidentally, the SECP officials declined to comment over the question on the grounds that there was no record or presence of Capital Engineering and the SECP could not trace its address, similarly there was no contact details including the CNIC of its CEO.

The Members of the Senate Committee noted the missing link and raised the question – how did the Chinese met CEO of Capital Engineering, because his statement was present in the documents forwarded by CSRC to the SECP.

As the SECP officials repeatedly said that the investigation was being carried out by FIA and that they were waiting for final inquiry report from the CSRC. Senator Mohsin Aziz, Senator Ilyas Bilour and Senator Saud Majeed criticised the SECP for possibly delaying the inquiry.