Corruption is as old as civilisation itself. The problem is, it has come to be seen as the norm in our country – thanks in no small part to the legend of Malik Riaz Hussain.
By Ahmer Kureishi
“I, sir, affix wheels under my file, and it quickly comes out”. This is how Malik Riaz Hussain once explained the secret of his success to a television anchor interviewing him.
The wily real estate tycoon has since mastered the art of always looming on the edge of the headlines but never being in them. These days, however, he is in the headlines for the wrong reasons.
The authorities in the United Kingdom have shared with Pakistan the details of a secret deal between Hussain’s Bahria Town and the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA).
The development came as part of a National Accountability Bureau (NAB) probe initiated on July 20 against the notorious Assets Recovery Unit (ARU) established by former Prime Minister Imran Khan over allegations of misuse of authority for financial gain, and criminal breach of trust in recovery of crime proceeds received from the UK, and illegal sealing of its record.
A GBP 190 million affair
The matter pertains to a GBP 190 million settlement signed in 2019 between the British NCA and Malik Riaz that came at the tail end of an investigation into the assets held in the UK by Malik Riaz and his family members. Khan’s anticorruption czar Mirza Shehzad Akbar officially announced the settlement at an Islamabad media conference on December 5, 2019.
Mirza said at the presser GBP 140 million had been repatriated to Pakistan while the remaining GBP 50million was to be transferred later after the sale of 1 Hyde Park Place – a prize property acquired by a company associated with Malik Riaz in March 2016 from Hasan Nawaz, the son of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
It was said at the time the money repatriated as part of the settlement had gone to a Supreme Court of Pakistan account set up by the court to receive Bahria Town’s liabilities.
Asked by reporters how the money – confiscated in the UK as proceeds of crime and repatriated to Pakistan as the country of origin – rightfully belonged to the national exchequer could be deposited on behalf of Malik Riaz, Akbar was evasive, maintaining a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) prevented him from elaborating on the matter.
When Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif took over this April, there were hopes the people of Pakistan will get some much needed answers. However, it soon surfaced that the Prime Minister’s office had no records pertaining to the matter.
In June, the government appointed a committee to probe into the allegations that former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra accepted land parcels worth billions of rupees from Hussain in bribes for using the repatriated funds to the benefit of his enterprise.
The NAB’s correspondence with the NCA on the course of the probe has now turned up this NDA, which seems to somehow have leaked to the media. Citing a Pakistan government official, Sama English says the deed “contains the details of foreign accounts and offshore properties of Bahria Town”.
It says “Ahmad Ali Malik, Malik Riaz Hussain, Bina Malik, Mubbashira Malik, and different offshore and business companies” are party to the agreement. Other signatories would be NCA and Pakistan.
Meanwhile, the family of Malik Riaz Hussain is determined to keep the actual settlement under the wraps. In June, Kingsley Napley, a law firm representing Bahria Town, threatened action for breach of contract when PM Sharif’s government first announced it intended to look into the matter.
The actual settlement between NCA and the family of Malik Riaz Hussain remains under the wraps.
Who is Malik Riaz Hussain anyway?
Malik Riaz Hussain is very well known in Pakistan as a humble clerk who took to small time contracting and made it big after branching into real estate development, becoming one of the country’s richest men. Also, he has a reputation as the country’s leading wheeler-dealer.
Seldom the main story himself, Hussain is always a supporting actor to one or the other of the protagonists in the high drama playing out on the national stage. For instance, when Chaudhry Pervez Elahi stormed into power in the Punjab province last week, it was Malik Riaz who sent his private jet to ferry him to the federal capital so President Arif Alvi could administer the oath of office to the Chief Minister-elect in the small hours of the night.
But Elahi is by no means the first politician to have accepted a favour from the magnanimous Hussain, nor will he be the last. And the use of his business jet is not the only favour he has done to someone high on Pakistan’s power ladder.
Nor are the politicians the only group of people to attract his affections. His is said to routinely shower his largesse on former and sitting judges and generals – and journalists.
This is allegedly why he has never lost a standoff over a piece of land whether public or private, never lost a significant case in a court of law, and almost never had anything damaging or slanderous published about his person in the national media.
Remember the former general who was in the headlines a few weeks ago for his open support for former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) at a time when the party was badmouthing the military and its chief? The mansion on the hill in which Lt-Gen Zaheer ul Islam, the former spymaster, held that public meeting in Rawalpindi’s Bahria 7 was allegedly a gift from Hussain.
Another prominent beneficiary of his benevolence was former President Asif Ali Zardari, whom Hussain allegedly gifted Lahore’s PKR 5 billion Bilawal House. That was around the time Bahria Town Karachi was launched. However, media reports later said the gift was returned and bought back by President Zardari.
Hussain does get a lot of favourable mentions in the medida for his philanthropic though. His company runs Bahria Dastarkhwan, a network of soup kitchens “providing free meals, twice a day, to more than hundred thousand people throughout Pakistan”.
But his exertions for the benefit of the poor do not end there. Bahria Town says its welfare projects span poverty alleviation, healthcare, education, disaster management, and community development. He gives away cash handouts to people struck by disaster, and distributes parcels of essential grocery and household items in several areas of Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad, and Rawalpindi on a daily basis.
Much has changed in the land of the pure in the eight years since Newsline Magazine published a profile of Hussain titled “Malik Riaz: Robbing Hood?” but the concluding paragraph of the piece by Salman Haqqi still rings true.
“Riaz uses his billions to the full extent that he can, either to buy influence within political circles or to project an image of the benevolent philanthropist. A billion here, a billion there, his simple philosophy is that if there is a problem, money can solve it. But it begs the question: Can his generosity give him carte blanche to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants to? He certainly seems to think so.”
A perfect crime?
It is tempting to cast Malik Riaz Hussain as a hero, to paint him in the colours of an inspirational rags-to-riches story of the kind we so desperately need. After all, is it not the high-achievers of a nation who forever define its destiny?
What would the United States look like today without its Bill Gateses and Mark Zuckerbergs? What would India be without its Mukesh Ambanis and Ratan Tatas? What would China be without its Jack Mas and Zhong Shanshan?
Youngsters around the world take inspiration from the varied stories of these billionaires, and Pakistan is no exception. Only, our youngsters end up being exposed to the likes of Malik Riaz Hussain, whose secret sauce is affixing wheels to files.
The problem here is not corruption per se. Corruption is at least as old as civilisation itself. The problem is that according to Hussain’s ethos, corruption is the way to go. Not only does he get away with corruption and enrich himself, he proclaims corruption as the mantra of success over national television and gets away with it.
The next thing we see him rubbing shoulders with the high and mighty of the land. What kind of impression does that leave on the green minds of the country’s youth? “Surely, he can’t be a bad guy can he? Or why would he have such easy access to everybody from the president to the prime minister to the judges to the generals?”
This is how the story of Malik Riaz Hussain becomes the story of the gutting of our social mores. We arrive at an ethos that sees money as the ultimate end – and accentuates that corrupt means work best.
Ultimately, we arrive at a republic where everybody from the local cop to the top general, from the lowliest clerk to the top judge, is an unscrupulous go-getter. Or was it our republic that cultivated the ethos of Malik Riaz Hussain in the first place? Whichever way you look at it, there is no denying that Hussain epitomises the values of our diseased republic.
To a young Pakistani mind, Hussain is the man – the ultimate hustler who exacts his toll from an uncooperative world and lives large – and he shares the goods around: Look at all those soup kitchens and hospitals and mosques he has built.
Equally important, he uses his money cleverly to buy impunity and influence. It is not just that the long arm of law cannot catch up with him, but that it becomes his arm, advancing his interests and protecting him from harm.
The NAB probe into the NCA deal is generating some good vibes right now on the back of jubilant media coverage of British cooperation. However, from what we already know, there are fears it will end up cementing the impression of Hussain being above the law rather than denting it.
Here is what we know.
- Starting 2018 and continuing 2019, the NCA staked out a bunch of real properties and bank accounts belonging to Malik Riaz Hussain and his family as suspected proceeds of crime.
- In 2019, Hussain held several meetings with Mirza Shehzad Akbar, who nudged the UK authorities towards a civil settlement.
- Assertions by Kingsley Napley suggest that somehow a provision for “the contents of those bank accounts to be paid against an existing civil debt owed by Mr Hussain’s business, Bahria Town (Private) Limited” made its way into the settlement.
- Also integral to the agreement was a confidentiality clause, requiring the NCA to secure a deed of confidentiality with the government of Pakistan.
- Shahzad Akbar executed the deed on November 6, 2019 in the form of an undertaking, in effect committing Pakistan to keep the agreement and related information confidential.
- The settlement is subject to English law – as is any dispute arising from it.
Considering all the facts, it is clear that the government of Pakistan is bound by an agreement executed in a foreign land with a foreign government agency. In other words, any breach of the NDA can potentially lead to compensation claims from Hussain and his family – and pit Pakistan against the UK’s government, through the NCA, in lengthy and expensive litigation.
It looks like Malik Riaz Hussain plotted a legally impregnable defence before taking jumping. He was likely advised by one or more minds very well versed in English and international law. By the way, did you know Mirza Shehzad Akbar is a barrister at law?
Aided by Mirza and others in the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan as he clearly was, it looks very much like Malik Riaz Hussain made sure no subsequent government would be able to get at him or his GBP 190 million.
If things do indeed transpire this way, the legend of Malik Riaz Hussain will grow. He just committed a perfect crime. His wrongdoing may be plain to see, but the law cannot touch him.
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