Mehrangate has cost about Rs 5 billion in public money. It is the culmination of a Ziaist legacy in which the fatal nexus between illicit megamoney and a felonious business, military-bureaucratic, political elite has played havoc with the institutions of the state.
The chief culprit is Younus Habib who has milked the Habib and Mehran banks from 1989 to 1994 and passed on a substantial chunk of his ill-begotten money to business cronies and political benefactors.
More ominously, though, former army chief, General (retired) Mirza Aslam Beg, is also deeply involved in some murky deals. Beg has admitted to taking Rs 140 million from Habib and says that a slice of this ‘philanthropic donation’ went to the ISI. The rest was used for the purposes of the “election cell” organised by the IJI and its patrons in 1990. The sum may be peanuts but the implications of the use to which it was put are horrendous.
Gen Beg roped in the President of Pakistan and the combined opposition parties to discredit and overthrow the elected government of prime minister Benazir Bhutto in 1990. He followed up by rigging the 1990 elections so that his protege, Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, could become prime minister and make him a powerful Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee for another three years after retirement. But fellow conspirator Gen Hameed Gul, who wanted to be COAS after Beg retired, linked up with President Ishaq to nominate Nawaz Sharif as prime minister. Thus Beg was obliged during the Gulf war in 1991 to destabilise the Nawaz Sharif government in order to advance his ambitions. From 1988 to 1991, he recklessly manipulated the institutions of the army — ISI and MI — to erode the credibility of the political system. It is a sordid tale of greed, conspiracy and vaulting ambition which laid the state low. (see pages 6-7)
Following the Mehrangate disclosures, some conclusions are already unassailable. (1) The nexus between money and politics has assumed dire proportions — there is apparently no limit to the greed of politicians like Jam Sadiq Ali, Altaf Hussain, Nawaz Sharif, Chaudry Shujaat, Ijaz ul Haq, Javed Hashmi and many others. (2) The nexus between ambitious soldiers and corrupt politics has severely damaged the institutions of the state and is responsible for the recurrent crises of government in this country.
The irony in the situation should also not be missed. In 1992, Mr Nawaz Sharif appointed Lt-Gen Javed Nasir as head of the ISI. Gen Nasir was persuaded by his old chief, Gen Beg, to transfer Rs 100 million plus US$ 17.2 million of ISI money to the Mehran Bank, doubtless for some welcome ‘considerations’.
In May 1993, however, Gen Nasir was fired by the caretaker government of Balakh Sher Mazari. The new DG-ISI, Gen Javed Ashraf Qazi, consulted with his COAS and decided to rescind his predecessor’s dubious orders. When the ISI said it wanted its money back, Younus Habib balked because there was nothing in the kitty. So the ISI picked him up quitely and told him to cough up or else.
By February 1994 Habib had somehow repaid most of the ISI’s money. But, as a result, the Mehran Bank was now bleeding profusely and in desperate need of a transfusion. So Habib persuaded his friends in Islamabad to lean on the State Bank not only to write off Rs 170 million in penalties but also to allow him to sell off FEBCs worth US$ 37 million. His fatal error lay in not depositing the proceeds in the State Bank as required by law.
So the new governor of the State Bank — an admirable, independent sort of fellow appointed by Mr Moeen Qureshi — reckoned that enough was enough and ordered the FIA to get cracking. Islamabad scanned the FIA’s enquiry and reasoned that the ruling party was on a solid enough footing: the opposition was deeply involved but no one of any stature from its own stables seemed to be seriously entangled. So the FIA was given the all-clear to pick up Younus Habib.
Habib is now singing like a canary. Every day brings a fresh revelation which boggles the mind. Yet scores of questions are still unanswered and many of Habib’s unsavoury political links, including some with members of the ruling alliance, remain unexplored. Thus there are grounds to fear that a cap may be put on his labyrinthine confessions as they also begin to encroach on the credibility of those in power today.
Certainly, Habib’s own strategy is geared to this end. He is threatening to name more names so that the potential net becomes uncomfortably wide for Islamabad. Consequently, a deal to silence him in exchange for letting him off lightly cannot be ruled out.
That would be an unforgivable lapse. If the scam is capped, an excellent opportunity to purge the political system will have been missed. Will the new umpires sit back and allow the criminals to perpetuate themselves? If they do, they will be acquiescing in the further erosion of the state and its institutions they have pledged to protect.