KARACHI: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is said to have expedited inquiry against Habibullah Khan, alleged owner of the DP World / Qasim International Containers Terminal (QICT) and other 65 officials of QICT and Maersk, in country’s biggest ports and shipping scandal.
According to details, the inquiry was approved by the NAB’s Executive Board meeting held under the Chairmanship of Justice (r) Javed Iqbal in Islamabad where five inquiries were approved including inquiries against Habibullah Khan of DP World / Qasim International Containers Terminal (QICT), M/s United Energy Group Limited, M/s Pakistan Petroleum Limited, M/s Millat Tractors and officers of NTDC. The meeting was attended by Deputy Chairman NAB, Prosecutor General Accountability NAB, DG Operations NAB, DG NAB Rawalpindi and other senior officials. In another case, Collector MCC Port Qasim Mumtaz Ali Khoso under the leadership of Chief Collector Suraiya Ahmad Butt recently lodged an FIR against management of DP World / QICT and others involved in an organized illegal removal of the auction cargo from port area by presenting fake and forged documents. NAB has taken up the case against Maersk Pakistan as well and Aruna Hussain, new CEO of Maersk Pakistan, could also be included in the inquiry process by the NAB.
A local newspaper reported that Habibullah Khan recently declared liquid assets of $1.25 billion outside of Pakistan in the single largest Amnesty declaration in the South Asian country. He is the Founder and Chairman of Mega Conglomerate – Mega & Forbes Group of Companies (Mega Group – MFG). Forbes Group includes Forbes Shipping Company (Pvt) Ltd, Inservey Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd and Inshipping (Pvt) Ltd. He is also the owner of Haleeb Foods. Pioneer Cement Ltd is an affiliate of Mega group. The group led by Habibullah Khan owns 47% shares of Pioneer Cement through Vision Holding Middle East Limited.
The newspaper quoted Habibullah as boasting, “By 2000, we bought Qasim International Container Terminal (QICT), where the DP World is our partner today. We used to control 42 percent of anything that came in and out of this country in containers,” he says. While surprisingly QICT hides this partnership of Habibullah Khan on its website to show that QICT is fully owned by DP World. This hide and seek between the trio Habibullah, QICT and DP World smells fish which needs to be uncovered by the investigators at NAB. Habibullah accepted in an interview that he is the owner of QICT and DP World is their partner then question arises that why he is hiding his name from ownership of QICT on their official website, possibly to save himself from criminal activities of management and staff of the terminal, sources said. Sources said Mrs. Nusrat Khan is Director of QICT Pvt Ltd and she is also the Executive Director of Mega Conglomerate (Pvt) Ltd. of which Habibullah Khan is the chairman. Similarly, Aly Khan is a director of QICT Pvt. Ltd. and also director of Haleeb Foods Limited and Pioneer Cement Limited both of which are led by Habibullah Khan.
Sources said Habibullah owned British Virgin Islands-based companies including Vision Holding Middle East Limited (VHMEL) through which he bought 47% shares of Pioneer Cement Limited. He also tried to buy Meezan Bank in 2013 through his other Panama-like offshore company Vision Financial Holding Limited (VFHL) but the State Bank of Pakistan questioned the potential buyer’s obscure identity as source of wealth of the company was not clear to the SBP. VFHL’s source of income and funding was not clear to the SBP so the central bank stopped its transaction to buy Meezan Bank. The role of Habibullah’s dubious offshore company VFHL must be ascertained as he uses these companies to buy major stakes in Pakistani companies.
It is pertinent to mention that the NAB received a complaint with subject: Building dams by recovering losses of more than Rs 400 billion from officials of port terminals like DP World / QICT and shipping lines like Maersk Pakistan Pvt Ltd in terms of looting the nation under the garb of demurrage and detention, non-payment of hundreds of billions of sales tax to Sindh Revenue Board (SRB) and also looting foreign exchange of Pakistan to the tune of millions of dollars annually and further illegalities committed by them. The alleged nexus of some private port terminals like DP World / QICT along with its parent company DP World, Port Qasim and shipping line Maersk Pakistan and a few officials of the SRB are making illegal money through malpractice defrauding the SRB of hundreds of billions of rupees by not paying Sales Tax on services offered at the rate of 13%. A foreign shipping company’s agent Maersk Pakistan is reportedly providing shipping and other services in Pakistan to various importers and exporters. Therefore, they are liable to pay service tax to SRB at the rate of 13% as per SRB Notification No. 3-4/20/2017. The Commissioner II of the Sindh Revenue Board was bound by the Notification No. 3-4/20/2017 to collect sales tax on services from the shipping lines as mentioned in point 15 of the table which is also available on the official website of SRB.
Furthermore, terminal ports like DP World / QICT and shipping line Maersk Pakistan are not allowed to collect any demurrage and detention amounts from the importers when the importers provide “delay and detention certificate” under section 14-A of the Customs Act, 1969. Despite this the port terminal and the shipping line blackmail and harass the importers to collect hundreds of thousands of rupees per single consignment in connivance with the concerned Government officials, Port Qasim Authority (PQA), Karachi Port Trust (KPT), Ministry of Maritime and others. The shipping line Maersk Pakistan and terminal operator QICT are collecting local service charges from Pakistan customers and freely converting such Pakistan rupees to US Dollars and repatriating the same which tantamount to the gross abuse of the foreign exchange laws of Pakistan. This action is draining our nation of our valuable foreign reserves and causing our currency to nose dive, the complaint said.
The NAB received another complaint seeking probe to ascertain link of Habibullah Khan with Qasim International Container Terminal (QICT) / DP World in parking billions of rupees black money. In this complaint the NAB was asked to launch probe to ascertain role of 65 employees of QICT / DP World and a shipping company in country’s biggest shipping scandal involving 610 billion rupees. The complaint received by the NAB demanded legal action for recoveries of amounts looted and recovering losses of Rs. 610 billion to the national exchequer per year while also stopping such further losses from the accused persons of these companies including Habibullah Khan, Yuvraj Narayan, Deepak Parekh, Robert Woods, Abdulla Ghobash, Mark Russell, Mohammed Saif Al Suwaidi, Nadya Abdulla Kamali, Mohammed Al Muallem, Suhail Al Banna, Rizwan Soomar, Rashid Abdulla, Mohammad Al Hashimy, Junaid Zamir and others of DP World/ QICT Ltd. The accused persons of DP World/ QICT Ltd. are facing charges of more than 20 mega scam allegations against them.
Now the NAB Executive board under the chairmanship of Justice (r) Javed Iqbal has finally approved inquiry against officials of DP World / QICT in country’s biggest ports and shipping scandal involving more than 400 billion rupees. Habibullah Khan DP World / QICT’s such alleged scams are reported extensively by Customs Today. After so much coverage by Customs Today about alleged mega scams of DP World / QICT with CEO Junaid Zameer including illegally taking scanning fees, demanding extra demurrage and detention charges and misusing green and yellow channels.
Sources said FIR lodged against the management of the DP World / QICT did not mention the name of its CEO Junaid Zameer who may be speculated to have fled abroad or in hiding or using favours and pressure to avoid inquiries. Khoso even hard pressed CEO of DP World / QICT Pakistan Ltd. Junaid Zameer recently to replace faulty scanners to ensure proper scanning of the containers. In fact, it is surprising that DP World / QICT Pakistan Ltd. has been illegally charging scanner fees for the import consignments over the years while it is known to the senior customs officials that proper scanning cannot take place with such faulty scanners.
The Collector Port Qasim started actively looking at the alleged mega scams of DP World / QICT Pakistan Ltd and lodged the above-mentioned FIR against DP World / QICT management for illegally removing goods. He has been performing exceptionally well, refusing to succumb to favours and pressure. It is pertinent to mention here that the NAB issued a notice to Chief Collector Appraisement South Suraiya Ahmed Butt and collectors in an inquiry against officials/officers of Customs Department and others regarding illegal import of around 930 containers of electronics and grey fabrics in the garb of second hand clothing, causing loss to national exchequer.
Chief Collector of Customs Appraisement South Suraiya Ahmed Butt has also been working effectively to curb the green and yellow channels smuggling including the faulty scanners at the Port Qasim terminal. She already had directed all the officials to implement demurrage and detention certificates issued by the department. Sources said that the accused persons are influential people and hence refuse to honour these Delay and Detention certificates issued by the Customs Department and keep collecting illegal demurrage and detention charges. The chief collector Suraiya Butt and the Port Qasim collector Mumtaz Khoso despite having a good track record have failed to curb the illegalities of these influential accused persons and have failed to get their own certificates honoured. This poses a big question on the writ of the state to curb open illegal activities of these influential accused persons and companies. Experts say that Surraiya Butt needs to strictly direct her juniors to keep a check on these companies which are bleeding our economy.
On the other hand, Wasif Ali Memon, Chief Collector of Customs Enforcement, under whose authority the licenses are issued to these shipping companies, must implement demurrage and detention laws or take action against these shipping companies and terminal operators including the accused bigwigs. Wasif Memon is one of the best persons for this post as he fully understands customs laws and working of the shipping lines & terminal operators. He also has good repute in the department due to proper implementation of enforcement and preventive policies. But a few juniors have not yet implemented these policies in letter and spirit that’s why powerful companies like DP World / QICT and Maersk Pakistan make their way through favour and pressure to loot our nation while inflicting billions of rupees loss on the exchequer. These companies have deeply penetrated in all departments to misuse laws and harass the citizens of Pakistan.
The complaint received by the NAB demanded legal action for recoveries of amounts looted and recovering losses of Rs. 610 billion to the national exchequer per year while also stopping such further losses from the accused persons of these companies including Søren Skou, Claus V. Hemmingsen, Søren Toft, Vincent Clercp, Morten H. Engelstoft, others of Maersk Line; Arslan Khan, Gazanfar Khan, Raheel Salim, Maqsood Ul Hasan Khan, Fuad Khan, Hasan Faraz, Shakeel Masih, Omer Khan, Ali Jawad Alvi, Zafar Iqbal, Ayesha Chowdhry, Zahid Hussain, Salman Ahmad, Aamir Ali, Umais Aziz Khan, Mohammed Naeem, Farheen Mahmud, Mubasshar Iqbal, Affaq Syed, Syed Mohammad Abbas Jafri, Muhammad Tanveer Sharif, Salman Ateeq, Hamza Haq, Ziad Mahboob, Aamir Ibrahim, Yasir Saeed Khan, Amal Sadiq Dawood, Effat Mehmood, Maria Urooj, Zain Warsi, Mehreen Zulfiqar, Awais Saleem, Zafar Iqbal, Syed Osman Iqbal Zaidi, Anum Yaqub, Fahad Ali, Obaid Iqbal, Zahid Hussain, Muhammad Ali Qureshi, Danish Siddiqui, Amir Arif, Arshad Ayub, Syed Mudassir Ali, Syed Hammad Hussain, Ayesha Qadri, Sheikh Samiullah, others of M/S Maersk Pakistan Private Limited.
Sources said Maersk shipping line and its subsidiary in Pakistan, M/s Maersk Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd are blackmailing importers through illegal holding & blocking of their imported goods for the sake of demanding additional demurrage and detention charges. After importers complaint, Model Customs Collectorate of Preventive, Karachi had issued a notice to M/s Maersk Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd as it started the process to cancel license of the company for sheer violation of the Customs Act 1969 and SRO 1220(I)/2015. Customs Today procured copies of the letter issued by Model Customs Collectorate of Preventive while pursuing to cancel license M/s Maersk Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd. Assistant Collector Licensing, Hameer Khan in a letter reference No S2/Misc/9/2018-Lic (P) sent to M/s Maersk Pakistan in the subject line as: “100% waiver of demurrage and detention and also cancelation of license of Maersk Pakistan Private Limited under rules 603 (Q), 603 (R), 604 (Q) and 607 (E), others under SRO 1220 (I)/2015 and u/s 14A of the Customs Act, 1969 while placing penalty u/s 156(1) 7A of the Customs Act, 1969”. In a move to cancel the licenses of these companies, importers had written a letter to Chief Collector Enforcement and Collector Customs Preventive to take necessary legal action against Maersk Line and its subsidiary Maersk Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd for violating SRO 1220 (I)/2015. NAB has taken up the case against Maersk Pakistan and Aruna Hussain, new CEO of Maersk Pakistan, could also be included in the inquiry process by the NAB. She has taken the charge sometime back but the company has not amended its alleged illegal activities under her supervision so the NAB could also summon her in this mega shipping scam case.
Now NAB has started inquiries against DP World / QICT and Maersk and our entire nation is fully confident that NAB Chairman Justice (R) Javed Iqbal while keeping up to his excellent reputation of ‘Accountability for all’ will not succumb to the favours and pressures of the influential while taking these inquiries to the logical end and recovering billions of rupees of looted money from these powerful companies.
