ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif confirmed on Friday the government would seek the extradition from the UAE of real estate tycoon Malik Riaz Hussain who is charged in a land corruption case involving former prime minister Imran Khan, promising to bring him back to Pakistan to stand trial.

Hussain is one of Pakistan’s wealthiest and most influential businessmen and the country’s largest private employers. He is best known as the chairman of Bahria Town Limited, which claims to be Asia’s largest private real estate developer. Hussain currently lives in Dubai. 

Last week, a Pakistani court sentenced ex-premier Khan to 14 years in prison and his wife, Bushra, to seven years in a case in which they are accused of receiving land as a bribe from Hussain through the Al-Qadir charitable trust during Khan’s premiership from 2018 to 2022 in exchange for illegal favors. All three deny any wrongdoing. 

Khan says he and his wife were trustees and did not benefit from the land transaction. Hussain has also denied any wrongdoing related to the case.

“His [Hussain’s] extradition will also be carried out now on a state-to-state level,” Asif told reporters at a press conference. “We have an extradition treaty with the UAE. A mafia cannot be allowed to run as a parallel state.”

The defense minister said Hussain had used his immense wealth and influence to seize land from the poor and widows for his housing societies across the country, saying Bahria Town’s transactions over the past 25-30 years were “not transparent.”

“You will see flaws in the approvals of all the land bought by Hussain for his housing societies,” he added.

Earlier this week, Pakistan’s anti-corruption watchdog, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), had cautioned people against investing in Hussain’s new real estate venture to build luxury apartments in Dubai.

“If the general public at large invests in the stated project, their actions would be tantamount to money laundering, for which they may face criminal and legal proceedings.”

Responding to NAB on X, Hussain said “fake cases, blackmailing and greed of officers” had forced him to relocate from country because he was not willing to be a “political pawn,”

AL-QADIR CASE

In 2019, Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) said Hussain had agreed to hand over 190 million pounds held in Britain to settle a UK investigation into whether the money was from the proceeds of crime.

The NCA said it had agreed to a settlement in which Hussain would hand over a property, 1 Hyde Park Place, valued at 50 million pounds, and cash frozen in British bank accounts. 

The NCA had previously secured nine freezing orders covering 140 million pounds in the accounts on the grounds that the money may have been acquired illegally.

The agency said the assets would be passed to the government of Pakistan and the settlement with Hussain was “a civil matter, and does not represent a finding of guilt.”

The case against Hussain and ex-PM Khan now is that instead of putting the tycoon’s settlement money in Pakistan’s treasury, Khan’s government used the money to pay fines levied by a court against Hussain for illegal acquisition of government lands at below-market value for development in Karachi.

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tax Bar Association (PTBA) has written a letter to the interior minister this week raising concern about the ‘unilateral’ rejection of security clearances for foreign investors, which the union said could jeopardize their business activities in the country.

The government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif says it is committed to improving Pakistan’s investment climate as the South Asian country struggles to meet external financing needs. In 2023, Pakistan set up the Special Investment Facilitation Council to attract foreign funds and projects. In recent months, Saudi Arabia has promised to expedite a $5 billion investment plan for Pakistan, while the UAE and Kuwait have committed $10 billion each in promising sectors and Qatar has pledged $3 billion.

However, potential investors in Pakistan face many challenges such as taxation, persistently high inflation, red tape, weak rule-of-law, inconsistent regulation, corruption, political uncertainty, security concerns and a lack of transparency in public-sector decision-making.

“We are writing to you to raise a very serious issue in terms of rejection of security clearance for foreign investors who have incorporated a 100 percent foreign equity company in Pakistan,” the PTBA, a private body, said in the letter to Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi on Wednesday. 

As per the Companies Regulations, 2024, every foreign subscriber and director is required to seek security clearance by filing required documents to the interior ministry through the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan. After the incorporation, companies start their investments and set up their premises and factories to commence business operations in Pakistan. 

“Nowadays, companies have been receiving unilateral rejection letters from the SECP, informing them that the security clearance for their foreign subscribers and directors have been rejected,” the PTB said. “These letters neither specify the reasons for such rejection nor any opportunity of hearing to explain the defects/discrepancy if any.”

The union said these actions were sending a “very negative message” to foreign investors.

“Pakistan and one fine morning they are informed that they are not security cleared,” PTBA said. “This jeopardizes their entire business set up in Pakistan, which is against the government’s stated aim of inviting foreign investors to invest in Pakistan.”

The PTBA urged Naqvi to “immediately” address the issue, which was “adversely” affecting Pakistan’s ability to attract foreign investment.

The interior ministry has not yet commented on the PTBA’s letter.

Pakistan in 2023 nearly defaulted on the payment of foreign debts when the International Monetary Fund rescued it by agreeing to a $3 billion bailout to Pakistan. 

Last year, Islamabad secured a new $7 billion loan deal from the IMF. Since then, the country’s economy has started improving with weekly inflation coming down from 27 percent in 2023 to 1.8 percent earlier this month. Sharif has vowed to reduce dependence on foreign loans in the coming years and to seek more foreign investments.