Meet the minister who kept Rs465 millions’ properties in his servant’s name

by Tauqeer Abbas
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Shafaqna Pakistan:Despite having no known source of income, PTI leader and Federal Minister for Water Resources Fesal Vawda has made hundreds of millions of rupees benami transactions by selling two commercial properties which he kept in the name of his employee Sher Nawaz Khan.

Sher Nawaz Khan while giving his version admitted that he had been an employee of Vawda in his business till last year. An official communication of minister for water resources available with Daily Business World (DBW) shows that Sher Nawaz Khan is still associated with Fesal Vawda.

Sher Nawaz Khan bearing CNIC No. 42501-4069125-9 owned two commercial properties No.22-C and No.24-C, Phase V, Khayaban-e-Tanzeem, D.H.A. Mr Sher Nawaz signed an agreement with a private commercial bank, Emirates Global Islamic Bank Limited, to sell these two properties on June 08, 2006 at the price of Rs465 million. However, once the agreement was done between Mr Sher Nawaz Khan and the private bank, Mr. Vawda came in the front, approached the said bank and presented a power of attorney given to him by Sher Nawaz Khan (his employee at that time) to deal all the matter related to these properties.

In a later litigation before Sindh High Court (SHC) on the issue of sale-purchase agreement of these two properties, the said bank submitted before the SHC that Vawda informed the bank that Sher Nawaz Khan was his employee and he (Vawda) was the real and beneficial owner of these Properties. Copy of the power of attorney is available with DBW.

Vawda initially kept on promising that he will give his complete version on the issue but avoided to fulfill his promise. However, later when he was informed about certain admissions of Sher Nawaz Khan, Fesal said, “I will not give the version now”. On being pressed, Vawda maintained that the matter is in court and thus he will not respond.

Vawda was told that questions being asked to him were not about the issues pending before the court but they are only regarding the source of funding for purchasing these commercial properties worth hundreds of millions and keeping them as benami, he said he will not respond to any thing.

Fesal Vawda Group (FVG) Construction — a company which Vawda proudly introduce as the main source of his income is so small that it is neither registered with SECP as a company nor it is listed with Association of Builders and Developers (ABAD) in Karachi. Official record shows that his company paid zero sales tax from 2007 to 2013 while its sales tax account is suspended by the FBR since July 2013.

His firm M/s Fesal Vawda Construction is registered with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and file tax return in the category of individuals. According to FBR record, Vawda himself became taxpayer in 2004.

In his private circles, Vawda use to discuss the tax he paid after 2016 and the foreign properties he declared only in 2018 after hiding them for many years. The most important point is that all the business transactions including purchase of many properties in Pakistan and in different countries of the world were made many years before when his declared sources of income were almost none and he was paying nominal or zero tax to tax authorities here in Pakistan.

As per the documents available with DBW, Vawda filed a law suit against the private bank for violating the terms and conditions of the agreements. According to Vawda, the Bank paid the cost of the land initially but he utilized the said amount (sale proceeds) for acquiring 24 million Pre-Initial Public Offering (IPO) shares of the same commercial bank. According to Vawda’s petition filed in the Sindh High Court, the bank refused to issue the 24 million pre-IPO shares to him after some dispute arose between him and the bank. The case is still in the court. According to the history of the case on official website of the SHC, the case is not being actively pursued from 2013.

The official documents available with DBW reveal that Mr. Vawda had been filing sales tax returns from the fiscal year 2007 to 2013. However, the sales tax returns show zero sales tax in these years. There is no record of his income tax return during the fiscal year 2007 to 2013 in his online account of FBR. The FBR’s online record further shows that Vawda has not submitted his statement of Assets to the revenue board during these years.

As per FBR record, Mr. Vawda’s sales tax account has been suspended since July 2013 and according to FBR authorities the sales tax account is suspended when a company fails to submit its sales tax returns or the company goes dormant. DBW also explored the tax directories which showed Vawda paid zero tax in 2013, 2014 and 2015 and then started paying tax after becoming active in politics. But he purchased these properties in Pakistan in the name of his employee and bought properties worldwide in the period when he was paying zero tax and had no income as per his tax record. The source of income mentioned in his nomination papers during the fiscal year 2016 and 2017 when he paid the tax was stock exchange.

DBW also verified whether these properties were declared in Mr Vawda’s wife’s name. However, the FBR record shows that both Mr. Vawda and his wife paid zero tax from 2012 to 2017. There is no income tax return and statement of asset of Mr Fesal Vawda in the FBR’s online record from 2007 to 2013 as well.

Sher Nawaz Khan’s name was surfaced in the court documents including the agreements between the bank and Mr. Vawda and the copy of power of attorney. When he was approached for his version through telephone on January 19, 2019, Sher Nawaz first admitted that he was an employee of Fesal Vawda. However, when he was asked about the two properties which he sold to the bank and the power of attorney, all of a sudden he changed his stance and started hurling very serious threats. “Don’t try to contact me again. I am recording this call and will file a case against you in the Cyber-crimes cell of FIA,” Sher Nawaz said.

Further probe by DBW revealed that Sher Nawaz Khan is still working with Federal Minister Vawda as his private secretary. An official notification No. PS/Min (WR)/2018/Visit issued by Ministry of Water Resources to the Additional Inspector General of Police on January 17, 2019 reads, “I am directed to say that Mr. Muhammad Fesal Vawda, Federal Minister for Water Resources will be visiting his constituency NA-249 Karachi as per following program. It is requested that necessary security arrangements including squad may be provided to the Honorable Minister during his stay at Karachi. (Contact “Mr. Sher Muhammad” 03003456—).

When ‘Mr. Sher Muhammad’ was contacted on the number given on an official notification, he turned out to be the same person Sher Nawaz Khan who was contacted earlier to know as to why he kept Vawda luxurious properties in his name as benami. When he was given reference of this official letter bearing his cell number and was reminded that he had earlier said that he has left Vawda a year ago but he is still working with him with the name Sher Muhammad, he instead of giving any response to the question started abusing and threatening.

Interestingly, on Friday, May 17, 2019, when Vawda officially issued a press release to whole Pakistani media that fulfilling his promise he is going to distribute checques among poor citizens in a mosque of Karachi to enable them to start their own business, the cell number given at the end of the press release for any contacts or queries was also the contact number Sher Nawaz Khan, the same person. It’s a different story that later investigative journalist Umar Cheema reported in Daily The News that the said event in the a mosque of Karachi was yet another lie of the Vawda as the event was arranged by the wonderful organization “Akhuwat” and not by Vawda, his party or his government.

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