LAHORE
\nBashir Memon, the former director-general of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), has claimed that former prime minister Imran Khan made his \u201clife difficult\u201d after he started probing Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) financier Arif Naqvi.
\nMemon made these revelations in an exclusive interview with a private television channel Tuesday. The former FIA chief said that Naqvi-owned Abraaj Group has a controlling stake in Karachi\u2019s largest power utility, K-Electric (KE). He said that the utility used to delay payments to the Sui Southern Gas Corporation (SSGC) on one pretext or another.
\nWith KE a major consumer and lack of payments causing problems for the gas utility, the latter would cut-off gas supply. In turn, KE would start shutting down power across Karachi. Memon claimed that this tactic helped create unrest in the city and prompt both, the federal and Sindh governments, to get involved.
\nThe matter would be resolved after KE would make a partial payment and the gas supply would resume. However, all this ended up doing was increasing the payables which KE owed SSGC to around Rs87 billion. The issue finally drew the FIA\u2019s attention and Memon launched a probe.
\nThe former prime minister told me many times that you have destroyed Arif Naqvi, Memon said. \u201cI told him that the person whose money is stuck should be worried and the person who is not paying the due amount should be ashamed but you are making our lives difficult.
\nWhat is our fault? We neither took anyone\u2019s money nor we going to receive it,\u201d the former FIA director-general said. Memon said he told the former prime minister that SSGC, which is supposed to receive money from Naqvi\u2019s company, is a government entity while this [KE] is a private entity that owes them millions.
\nThis, Memon claimed, only further angered Imran who instead chose to chastise the investigator. \u201cThat\u2019s when he told me that Naqvi had financed the PTI during the elections. Now, the Election Commission\u2019s investigation has shown that PTI received $2.1 million [from Naqvi].\u201d
\nWhen Naqvi was arrested at Heathrow Airport, London, he gave two names and numbers, of our former prime minister and President Arif Alvi, claimed Memon. When I learnt that the Shanghai Corporation was considering the acquisition of KE, I wrote to the Security Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) asking them to make sure if they [Abraaj Group] have mentioned these Rs87 billion as a liability in their balance sheet or who will pay this, the former FIA chief stated.
\nMemon said that the KE and SSGC pending payments were one of the biggest cases which he had investigated in his life. \u201cI would have recovered the money had I been given freehand [to investigate],\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LAHORE Bashir Memon, the former director-general of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), has claimed that former prime minister Imran Khan made his \u201clife difficult\u201d after he started probing Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) financier Arif Naqvi. Memon made these revelations in an exclusive interview with a private television channel Tuesday. The former FIA chief said that Naqvi-owned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-257499","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-top-news"},"yoast_head":"\n