Ruling reserved in AMTEX-EOBI case
FACC reserved its judgment in the Amtex-EOBI case following the completion of arguments.
Dunya News Report (Humaira Sajid)
KARACHI-The Federal Anti-Corruption Court (FACC) has reserved its judgment in the Amtex-EOBI case following the completion of arguments by the counsels of Akeel Karim Dhedi (AKD) Securities Group after the arrest of three senior officials, Farid Alam, Haji Iqbal, and Tariq Adam Ghumra.
On Monday, district East’s Judicial Magistrate Sobia Aftab will announce the judgment relating to the scam. Earlier, on Tuesday she had sent the three officials of AKD Securities to jail custody for five days in a case pertaining to a multi-billion-rupee swindle in sale of shares to Employees Old-Age Benefit Institution (EOBI). The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrested chief executive officer Farid Alam, Equities head and director Tariq Adam Ghumra, director Muhammad Iqbal on January 4 for their alleged involvement in the EOBI scam.
However, the detention of AKD Securities CEO Farid Alam along with two directors by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on the pretext of a research report has come as a surprise to many. During an interview with a senior journalist Dr. Moeed Pirzada, the Chairman of AKD Group Aqeel Karim Dhedi termed arrest of his three employees as a plot against him, and alleged that high-ups and high officials of the country have planned the plot.
He alleged that Fawad Hasan Fawad, Mir Shakeel-ur-Rehman and a former director of the FIA, Saud Mirza were other players in the plot against him. While explaining his companies’ role in EOBI-AMTEX share holding he said: AKD securities played its role with Initial Public Offer (IPO), enlistment of M/s Amtex Limited in Karachi Stock Exchange on April 13, 2010 and also established its research report showing the Earning per Share (EPS) of the company. He said AKD Group was not the only company to put forward EPS research report, other companies including Amcap Securities, RAH Securities, Pearl Securities, Investment Capital Market and Foundation Security also published them and 99 per cent of the content of these reports was identical.
As many as 22 accused have been nominated in the interim charge-sheet submitted by the FIA’s investigation officer (IO) in the corruption cases against Aqeel Karim Dhedhi (AKD) Group last week. The FIA sources said AKD research report submitted by AKD brokerage house shows the Earning per Share (EPS) of the company in 2010 is 5.17 and its actual EPS shown in the annual report of 2009-10 is Rs3.74 in the year 2010.
The FIA complaint further suggested that the AKD research report also shows the forecasts of EPS Rs7.10 and Rs9.93 for the year 2011 and 2012 but on ground the M/s Amtex suffered massive losses and EPS went down in negatives, i.e. Rs7.19 in the year of 2011 and Rs10.4 in 2012. The long-term deposits have also decreased during the year 2009 and 2010 from Rs27, 469,171 to Rs21, 448,203 which shows that the M/s Amtex limited was crunching its assets to handle the financial liquidity crisis and it is on record that the current market value per share of the said shares is Rs2.73 whereas the average cost of shares per share purchased was 19.46. Thus there has been reduction in the value of shares of Rs17 and total loss suffered by EOBI is Rs290 million.
The contents of the FIR , a copy of which was shared with reporters, registered under section 409, 109, 34 of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) read with 5(2)PCA 1974, following the enquiry number 34/ 2014 which was registered at FIA Karachi, vide office letter number FUA/DSK/ENQ 40/13/CK/B-10947-49, the EOBI purchased 11.7 million shares of M/s Amtex limited on August 16, 2010 against Rs227,172,818 at the price of Rs19.3716 per share; EOBI again purchased 5,650,000 shares of M/s Amtex limited on August 27, 2010 against Rs110,487,106 at the price of Rs19.15 per share and total 17,350,000 shares of M/s Amtex limited against Rs337,659,914.
Contents of the FIR added that the above shares were purchased on the recommendations and endorsement of the Investment Committee of EOBI comprising of Kanwar Khursheed Wahid, then Director General Investment, and Zafar Iqbal Gondal, then Chairman EOBI, and the current value of per share is Rs2.73 and due to this act the public exchequer and EOBI suffered loss of Rs290 million. However, recently Amtex Company has offered the FIA to return Rs40 million and an affidavit has been submitted in this regard.
During the enquiry, criminal role of Amcap Securities pvt Limited was also found following the FIR conclusion which identified the connection between Amcap Securities and Amtex limited as Iftikharuddin, founding member of Amcap and father of Khurram Iftikhar, CEO of Amtex, Faiza Khurram, founding member Amcap and wife of Khurram Iftikhar, CEO of Amtex, Sajida Shahzad, founding member of Amcap and wife of Shahzad Iftikhar, Director of Amtex, Sonia Nadeem, Director of Amcap and wife of Nadeem Iftikhar, Director of Amtex and the owners of Amcap Securities and Amtex limited are same and section 187(i) of the Companies Ordinance is violated; criminal role of Khurram Shahzad, Marium Shahzad and Naveed Shahzad was also found in the month of August 2010, Rs9.5 million were credited in two different joint bank accounts of Khurram Shahzad, one with his wife Marium Shahzad and other with his brother Naveed Shahzad at Lahore, in accounts of Rs5 million have been transferred in to the joint account of Khurram Shahzad from the account of Amcap Securities. These payments were made to Khurram Shahzad by Amcap Securities and were immediately withdrawn in cash by Khurram Shahzad, no trades were executed through Amcap Securities during 2010 and even Khurram Shahzad did not have any trading account with Amcap Securities. As per the account opening, Khurram Shahzad was working head of sales at Trust Leasing and Investment Bank Limited at Lahore.
The FIR says “from the above enquiry so far, it is easily deducted that Khurram Shahzad played a main role between Amcap, Amtex Vz Executive Investment Committee to broker the sale and purchase transactions of Amtex shares and is believed to be a front man of Wahid Khursheed”.
However, during an interview Chairman AKD blamed the FIA authorities of arresting Khurram Shehzad CEO of AMTEX from Faisalabad but releasing him on some “anonymous” cause immediately after reaching the Lahore airport.
