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Pakistan's premier website that covers current affairs and news.
Financial Times Article on Imran Khan (Page 3)
(Previous Page) That re-election effort means that although the Naqvi funding took place almost a decade ago, the controversy around it, and the final findings of the election commission, are likely to be at the forefront of Pakistan politics for some time.
#ImranKhanCorruption
Arif Naqvi, pictured at Abraaj’s New York office, The private equity firm, founded by Arif in 2002, also had offices in Dubai, London and across Asia, Africa and Latin America © Angel Franco/New York Times/Redux/eyevine
While it has previously been reported that Naqvi funded Khan’s party, the ultimate source of the money has never before been disclosed. Wootton Cricket’s bank statement shows it received $1.3mn on March 14 2013 from Abraaj Investment Management Ltd, the fund management unit of Naqvi’s private equity firm, boosting the account’s previous balance of $5,431. Later the same day, $1.3mn was transferred from the account directly to a PTI bank account in Pakistan. Abraaj expensed the cost to a holding company through which it controlled K-Electric, the power provider to Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city.
A further $2mn flowed into the Wootton Cricket account in April 2013 from Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak al-Nahyan, a member of Abu Dhabi’s royal family, government minister and chair of Pakistan’s Bank Alfalah, according to the bank statement and a copy of the Swift transfer details.
Naqvi then exchanged emails with a colleague about transferring $1.2mn more to the PTI. Six days after the $2mn arrived in the Wootton Cricket bank account, Naqvi transferred $1.2mn from it to Pakistan in two instalments. Rafique Lakhani, the senior Abraaj executive responsible for managing cash flow, wrote in an email to Naqvi that the transfers were intended for the PTI. Sheikh Nahyan didn’t respond to requests for comment.
“Like other populists, Khan is made of Teflon,” says Uzair Younus, director of the Pakistan initiative at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based research group. “But his opponents will try to use the foreign funding controversy to weaken the argument that he is not corrupt,” he adds, and to encourage the election commission to “punish him and his party”.
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A useful ally
Naqvi, 62, was born into a Karachi business family. After studying at the London School of Economics he spent the 1990s working in Saudi Arabia and Dubai and started Abraaj in 2002, building it into an investment powerhouse. With offices in Dubai, London, New York and across Asia, Africa and Latin America, the company raised billions of dollars from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the US administration of Barack Obama, the British and French governments and other investors.
Well-connected, Naqvi liked to impress. John Kerry — a speaker at one Abraaj event — was approached by the company about working with it after he served as US secretary of state. Naqvi met Britain’s Prince Charles and was active in one of his charities, the British Asian Trust. He was a board member of the UN Global Compact, which advises the UN secretary-general, and sat alongside former Nissan chair Carlos Ghosn on the board of the Interpol Foundation, which raises funds for the global police organisation. Next Page 4
Posted on July 29, 2022
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