Tareen’s return
Jahangir Tareen’s return to the country from London after an absence of five months has tickled the speculative nerve of our commentariat. Although Tareen told media on his return that he had been in London for medical treatment, the circumstances surrounding his departure suggest other reasons. Tareen left Pakistan for London soon after the sugar inquiry commission report was made public in June 2020 that revealed the names of different players in the sugar sector, including Jahangir Tareen and Khusro Bakhtiar, who were accused of benefiting from the crisis that ensued because of a shortage brought on, amongst other factors, by the government’s mistake in allowing the export of sugar, a transaction that also helped these sugar barons to benefit from a subsidy on the export price. At the time, the government, and particularly Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan, came in for a bit of stick from the opposition for allowing a close confidant of the PM to escape. On his return, Tareen denied he had received any ‘NRO’ to allow him to return, claimed he had nothing to hide, his business was clean and transparent and that he had no worries in this regard. However, he kept mum when asked whether he would be joining the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA’s) inquiry for which he had been summoned for investigation before his departure. Initially Jahangir Tareen rejected the summons, later he asked for time to respond, and then stated he would appear before the FIA after his return. The FIA had asked for details of Tareen’s assets in Pakistan and abroad, his bank transactions, especially transfer of money abroad (amidst speculations about his declared/undeclared properties in the UK), bank accounts of his family members and employees and sugar-related transactions of his firm JDW. Interestingly, Tareen attempted to put a positive spin on his return by claiming he would continue to help the government in its endeavours to control the sugar shortage and the resultant price hike. He also tweeted that his firm was not part of the petition against the Punjab government notification to start the sugar crushing season from November 10, 2020, and all his mills in Punjab and Sindh would start crushing on that date. The positive note in this message may or may not put to rest the questions unanswered about his and other major sugar barons’ role in the crisis, which has yet to abate. For consumers forced to play exorbitant rates for the everyday sweetener, this may well be salt on their wounds.
The sugar inquiry scandal points to troubling anomalies in the so-called accountability process. As it is, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has muddied the water to the extent that the anti-corruption drive so beloved of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government has lost a fair bit of credibility as being tilted against, if not a witch-hunt of, the opposition, while treating the PTI leaders caught in the NAB net with kid gloves. Imran Khan himself has recently been acquitted in the parliament attack case because of the prosecution (appointed by the PTI government) stating it did not wish to pursue the case. The foreign funding case of the PTI before the Election Commission of Pakistan does not appear to be going anywhere. Add to this the public perception of Jahangir Tareen being let off the sugar scandal hook, and the suspicion of partisan treatment of those in government (or close to it) and those in the opposition approaches firm conviction. In Jahangir Tareen’s case, when the sugar inquiry report was made public on the instructions of PM Imran Khan, the latter stated before even any investigation that Tareen would be cleared of all the charges against him. Now Tareen’s return has set off speculations regarding some ‘assurance’ received by him that he would not be touched. The underlying reason for the timing of the ‘facilitation’ of Tareen’s return with unknown assurances may be the rifts in the ruling coalition with the smaller partners complaining of neglect and not being taken along by the majority PTI. It may be recalled that a the time of the setting up of the PTI coalition government in 2018, Tareen is credited with herding about 20 MNAs into the PTI corral. Tareen may also be expected to help fund and organise the PTI’s counter-campaign of rallies against the opposition’s onslaught.
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