Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has not released the full text of the Coops Commission Report. And for good reason. If the complete report had been made available, instead of a rigged press release prepared in the PM’s secretariat, its transparent falsehoods might have restrained the press from publishing screaming headlines favouring the PM and accusing the PPP.
In a Public Notice on 15 November, 1991, published in all the papers, the government announced the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry under section 3 of the Pakistan Commission Inquiry Act, 1956, to investigate the Coops crisis, fix responsibility for the public’s losses and recommend measures to re-pay all genuine claims. In this Public Notice, the Commission’s responsibilities and scope are noted in details running into 11 sections (a to g and f(i to v). The Notice also entitles anyone to submit sworn affidavits or appear in person before the Commission in reference to its full terms.
Yet, the Commission’s full report (which TFT has had the nerve to persue secretly) has conveniently ignored section g(i to v) of the Public Notice which relates to (1) measures required to be taken for repayment of the amounts due to depositors (2) “recommend and fix responsibility on all relevant quarters…”. Says the Commission Report on page 167: “The proceedings being inquisitorial rather than adversarial and life span of the Commission being of a few weeks, any attempt to find the answer in the circumstances and the legal position obtaining in the matter, would have been impossible”.
If that is indeed so, we might well ask how, as per the press release, the Commission has then absolved Mian Nawaz Sharif and Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain of any culpability in the scandal and pointed an accusing finger at the PPP. If this is the Commission’s definition of “inquisitorial” and “adversarial”, the learned judges might well be advised to look up the Dictionary for the meaning of these words. Certainly, it very much seems as though the PM and the Commission have had their cakes and eaten them too. The Report is, if anything, adversarial towards the PPP and inquisitorial towards all other issues.
The PPP, as represented by Messrs Aitzaz Ahsan, Tariq Rahim and Salmaan Taseer, went by the Public Notice and applied before the Commission to be heard. The Attorney-General, Punjab and the Ittefaq Group’s lawyers opposed their presence in the hearings despite the publicly announced terms of reference. For the sake of form, the judges relented later, but only to hear the PPP view (2 hours in all) of the financial cause of the crisis and not to entertain remarks or facts about Mian Nawaz Sharif’s responsibility in the affair!
If you examine the press release, you will note some obvious statistical tinkerings conjured by a would-be trickster in the PM’s secretariat. We are told that the Ittefaq Group took loans from two Coops amounting to only 5 per cent of their total ‘deposits’. Surely, we would like to know what these loans amounted to as a percentage of all ‘loans’ (not deposits) taken. Looking at it that way, it turns out that between them, the PM and Interior Minister’s family took nearly 40 per cent of all the loans advanced by the biggest Coop of them all — NICFC — in one year!
We are also informed about the Ittefaq Group’s magnanimity in paying billions in ‘taxes’ to the public exchequer. This is the blatant lie. Ittefaq may have paid import and excise ‘duties’ as a measure of its total turnover, but we are more interested in knowing how much it has paid in ‘income tax’ on net profits. Of course, the Commission is conveniently ignorant of accounting terms.
A blow by blow account of the Commission’s failings and deviations would run into as many pages as the Report itself. There will be time enough for that. For the moment, we should simply like to make some general points.
(1) The Commission retracted on its terms of reference no sooner than the ink on the Public Notice of its scope had dried on November 15 (2) The Commission has unfairly condemned the PPP and absolved the IJI of their respective responsibilities in the matter. While the loans sanctioned by the Coops to members of the PPP did not amount to more than Rs 50 crores while the PPP was in power, those given to IJI stalwarts while Mian Nawaz Sharif was Chief Minister of the Punjab and then Prime Minister run into billions (3) The Commission has compromised its independence and authority by allowing its offices to be manipulated by the Law Department of the government (4) The crooks who ran the Coops and also borrowed from them — who swindled the public — belong to the IJI. But the Commission has thought it fit to concentrate on a handful of Piplias who borrowed the odd crore or ran the odd Coop.
It is a sorry exercise and we are saddened to see the Commission lending itself to such practices. We are sorrier still to see the press lending its front pages to currying favour with the government in power rather than fulfilling its responsibilities to the public by critically examining the full report.