ISLAMABAD, Oct 2: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has sought a probe into the alleged bungling and malpractice in the Silk Route Dry Port Trust (SRDT) to redress the grievances of stakeholders who had make huge financial contributions towards the setting up of the port.

In a statement here on Monday, MNA Syed Naveed Qamar, who is president of the economic coordination committee of the party, sought a detailed audit of the trust’s accounts.

“The reports that no annual audit has been made and no meeting of the general body held during the past six years despite protests by investors also needs to be probed,” he said.

The dry port was set up at the border town of Sust in Hunza in 1998 to facilitate border trade between China and Pakistan, and any scandal surrounding it could create law and order situation that would negatively impact trade with China.

The MNA said local community members had made an investment of over Rs175 million in the project by donating land and cash. However, they have not even been shown the accounts of the trust, let alone paying them any dividend.

The trust management has not yet held a single annual meeting of the trustees during the past six years as is required under the law. Local investors have also flung accusations that two fake companies have been formed by the management to skim off the profits that belong to the actual investors.

The former chairman of the privatization committee said the laws pertaining to trusts were very clear. Elections to the office of chairman have to be held every two years and its accounts have to be regularly audited by external auditors, he said.

The reports that neither elections to the office of chairman have been held nor the accounts audited are most disturbing and must be investigated by the Central Board of Revenue and the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, he said.

“We are witnessing another financial scam brewing this time in the Northern Areas close to our borders with China.”

HBFC notices: A cell has been set up in the PPP secretariat to take up the issue of notices served by the House Building Finance Corporation (HBFC) on small borrowers for auctioning their houses.

In a statement, PPP Senator Enver Baig said he had learnt that notices were still being issued by the HBFC, threatening the borrowers with the auctioning of their houses.

He said it was criminal that the rich and the influential had ganged up to have their over Rs22 billion loans written off in just one year, while the small borrowers were threatened by the HBFC with the auctioning of their houses just because they had defaulted on one or two instalments.

He said that all borrowers of banks and other financial institutions must repay their loans, but to auction the houses of small time borrowers while writing off loans of big borrowers was unjust.