The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and the Commerce Ministry are at loggerheads over evaluation of land involving National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) multi-billion scam. Sources said FIA has rejected NICL evaluation, estimating total value of the land purchased by Ayaz Khan Niazi and his associates at Rs 5 billion and claimed that the actual price of the property could be over Rs 8 billion.
The FIA in its report to the Commerce Ministry said that its evaluator have under priced the land purchased by Ayaz Khan Niazi & Co for NICL in Karachi and Lahore and it strongly recommends for an independent evaluation of the land to have factual price of the property under question.
An FIA official privy to NICL investigation and revelations done by the accused under arrest said, "We have rejected the evaluation conducted by a private sector evaluator on behalf of the Commerce Ministry and conveyed to the Secretary Commerce in writing about our point of view on the issue".
The FIA official claimed that the price of the land purchased by Ayaz Khan Niazi and his associates was over Rs 8 billion and evaluator intentionally under priced it to keep the amount involving the fraud at the possible lowest level. However, FIA's report has asked the Commerce Ministry for another independent evaluation to help in investigations of the case and filing of charges that can be defended in court. During Ayaz Khan Niazi's tenure NICL purchased land in Lahore, Karachi and Dubai.
The deals came into the spotlight when Transparency International (TI) made stunning revelations that NICL management in connivance with some powerful political elite made billions of rupees in the deals inside and outside. The matter got important publicity both in print and electronic media which resulted in Supreme Court of Pakistan's suo motu action and asked the concerned departments to furnish all information relating to the scam.
The Commerce Ministry has totally different position to FIA claims on value of the fraudulent land deals done by Ayaz Khan Niazi and associates and its authorities are not interested in taking FIA claims seriously. The ministry officials believe that FIA's demand for an independent evaluation could linger on investigations into the scam indefinitely.