Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (Erra) Chairman Altaf Saleem has denied any sort of association with the Crescent Standard Investment Bank affair, a financial institution that is being taken to task for evading regulatory watchdogs by maintaining two different sets of accounts.
Talking to Business Recorder here on Wednesday, he contradicted some media reports in recent past that grouped him with a 'notorious' link responsible for artificially escalating sugar prices to earn undue profit.
"Neither myself nor anybody else from my (immediate) family had ever had any association with the CSIBL," he said. "The fact can be verified from the record of regulatory authorities," he sharply added.
Altaf Saleem had been holding portfolio of Privatisation Minister in the interim setup under President General Pervez Musharraf from October 1999 to November 2002.
He some nine months back replaced a military general as chief of the Authority set up to spearhead government efforts of reconstruction and rehabilitation after last year's devastating earthquake in the northern parts of the country.
Recently, he has been at the centre of a fierce criticism on a misleading deal by the management of the CSIBL. Some politicians and government functionaries gave the impression that Altaf Saleem was the 'owner' of the said financial institution.
But in his first ever reaction to the controversy, the former minister denied any connection whatsoever with the bank and said he was surprised why some people had attempted to defame him. "I can't understand why I am being stretched into the controversy," Saleem told this scribe.
Federal Minister Dr Sher Afgan Niazi had once on the floor of National Assembly said that the government was taking action against the CSIBL and Altaf Saleem was its owner.
Reacting to Niazi's statement, the Erra chief said: "He (Niazi) doesn't know me. We have never met. I don't know why he made me the owner of a bank I have no association with."
Asked why he didn't contradict when these reports appeared in media, he said it was beyond his capabilities to respond to too much stuff appearing in media.
In reply to another query about 'sugar mafia', Altaf said he had only nominal shares in a mill, and even that he had left by 1999 when he became a federal minister.