A Man of Vision-Mr. Nadeem Zaman, President of Pakistan Society of North Texas.

Interview by Shah A Siddiqui

It was evening of last week when I took time to sit and chat with Mr. Nadeem Zaman, the President of Pakistan Society of North Texas (PSNT) at his beautiful home in Frisco. I have been after him for long since after he won the election of the esteemed office of the President of PSNT. He is young, energetic and full of enthusiasm to serve the community. PSNT (Pakistan Society of North Texas) is fortunate to have a dynamic President for the last 16 months. He has excelled all previous Presidents in full filling the mandate of PSNT and the laid down objective for which the PSNT was formed 30 years back.

Truthfully the PSNT all along the year have been mostly ineffective, docile and dormant organization. The Pakistani community living in the DFW has been having numerous complaints and objections about the performance of this, otherwise a very prestigious representative body of Americans with Pakistani origin.

Happily, that stage of PSNT’s image has “good for nothing image” has undergone a radical productive transformation and the credit of this remarkable achievement goes to the incumbent President Mr. Nadeem Zaman. For these 2nd year term, he has been entirely riveted on improving the PSNT and in this regard, he has taken a number of steps and decisions, that have greatly improved the performance and output of PSNT.

Mr. Nadeem Zaman is a sincere person with superb quality of leadership, drive, initiative that has helped the PSNT as truly representative of the Pakistani Americans. For instance, he has raised the funds of the PSNT and, other than the trust money which is $ 250 K. The PSNT has a separate account that has gone up to around $100 K during the past 4 years.  It is indeed a monumental achievement. This was made possible because of his persuasive qualities and absolute honesty and the wealthy Pakistanis are ready to contribute donations for the PSNT.
It should be remembered that Pakistanis had many complaints about this organization which ranged from misused of funds and inactivity in addressing the day to day problems of the Pakistani community living in America.

 In an interview with this Bureau Chief, Mr. Zaman explained at length the goals that have been met and the achievements and changes that he brought about with his personal efforts and by dint of dedication towards reactivating the role of PSNT and the fulfillment of its charter.

Now among the annual functions or events that PSNT use to hold in a year towards the most
Prominent: One is the Annual Dinner hosted every year on 23rd March commonly known as Pakistan Day. The second biggest event in regards to Pakistan is the celebration of Pakistan Independence Day on 14th August every year. During the previous year and under the different executive bodies there was a mess up and confusion as well as to whom to invite and whom to not.
The common Pakistanis complained that only a coterie of rich and well to do Pakistanis were invited in the both functions. The common Pakistani would not show in large number because of lack of rapport and link between them and the top notch of PSNT.Now Mr.Nadeem Zaman has changed the culture and practice ever since he has been the President for the last more than 16 months. He said that “the annual dinner held for 23rd March is exclusively for the businessmen, for the elite, Congressmen, local city officials, the Judiciary and rich individuals. The aimed behind this strategy is to raise funds and to generate goodwill among the prominent and important members of the society. Understandably, only those people can be invited who can donate reasonable sums of money which we can utilize that fund to celebrate the second annual function that’s the Pakistan’s Independence Day held every year on August 14. He said that it is a general and open day in which all Pakistanis and non-Pakistanis are welcome to join. The celebration of this day renews the commitment and loyalty of the Pakistani Origin community to their original motherland Pakistan.”
Talking about the Independence day celebration, he disclosed that “In the past we use to charge a minimum of $5.00 as entry fee, but this year the PSNT is planning to keep the Independence Day celebration/Mela totally free for all Pakistanis and non-Pakistanis and the venue will be more attractive and larger. We will try to rent the Southfork Ranch, which is only 25 minutes away from Plano. It is worth to mention here that this Southfork Ranch is becoming famous after the TV show ‘Ewing Family’ It will be an all-day event for children and adults.
PSNT (Pakistan Society of North Texas) more often uses its funds to help needy and poor families. Recently PSNT helped with more than 2 trucks of loaded commodities and foods for the tornado disaster city of Rowlet and Garland areas which was appreciated by the local city Mayor and officials. Nadeem Zaman has disclosed that last year PSNT had helped a widow lady from Pakistan and paid $ 2300.00 when she was in need. Highlighting yet another achievement during his tenure has raised the membership of PSNT from 1100 to 1900 and he hopes that the membership will increase with the time passage.
On my question about the purchasing of Pakistan House and the trust money, which would use for the purchase of the property, Mr. Nadeem Zaman replied “How we can buy a property for $ 200K to 300K which we have and who will own the property? It will be a big legal issue and to avoid such legal issues we have a plan that now an exclusive office would be rented where the activities and deliberation will be carried out independently as and when these will be needed.
Mr. Nadeem Zaman has a vision about the future of PSNT. In his interview he made a very important disclosure and which he aims to peruse for the rest of the period as the president of the PSNT. Recently he met some official of the Dallas County and during the conversation it was revealed that there were sizeable funds allocated for the welfare of the immigrant community. Perhaps because of ignorance these funds were not claimed by the representative immigrants’ bodies.  As such the County had to surrender an amount of $ 60 K, back to the allocating authority.  Mr. Zaman has decided that he will try to get those funds from the authorities and utilize them for the Pakistani qualified students and other needy people, eligible for such assistance. Hopefully he would translate his pledge and plans into concrete reality by getting the amount and distributing the amount to the people like poor student, homeless people and resource-less patients which would indeed be a huge blessing for all of them.
He has been involved with PSNT since last 6 years and he served as a volunteer and General Secretary before he won the election of the President. He reiterated that, whether he works with PSNT or not, but he will continue working for the uplift of the image of Pakistanis so that all Pakistani Americans could be recognized with respect and dignity in this country. He was proud to say that it was the first time in past 30 years that the Pakistani flag was hoisted in the city hall by his efforts.
Are you going to contest for the 2nd term of the office? I asked him my last question, He said “No, absolutely not, I will leave the room for others, moreover, I have to do something more for the community after this experience as President of the prestigious PSNT.
I enjoyed very much talking to him and got some wrong conception removed from the mind myself, and I trust after this interview most of the community people will understand better to Mr.Nadeem Zaman in a positive way. I wish him all the best for the remainder of the time he has to serve the community from the platform of the Pakistan Society of North Texas.
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The Panama Leaks and Nawaz Sharif Family

By Saeed Qureshi

A team of The International Consortium of Investigate Journalists (ICIJ) leaked the Database Documents commonly known as Panama Papers. ICIJ works forPanama Papers. Panama Papers is the largest international organization of its kind across the globe. The leaked documents involving 214000 offshore companies were researched by around 400 journalists around the world from 80 nations. The number of confidential documents researched is 1.5 million. Besides 100 media organizations including BBC, Guardian, Suddeutsche Zeitung, Falter, etc. were involved in this research. The collected information runs into 2.6 terabytes of data.

The Central actor or facilitator mentioned in the historic and unprecedented so titled “Panama Leaks” is Mossack Fonseca. It is a law firm of Panama that works globally to establish, manage and sell the anonymous businesses and companies to prospective interested parties.

Mossack Fonseca manages the secret assets of major banks, legal firms and asset management companies. Its shady deals also encompass industrialists, actors, the world’s rich and famous politicians, personalities, fraudsters, drug smugglers, professionals, etc. Thus the beneficiaries and clients of the Mossack Fonseca can evade taxes and and money laundering.

It prepares fake documents, creates phony directors and hides the true identity of the actual owners of the offshore businesses. In simple world it helps, in an apparent legal way, the money laundering of the black or illegitimate wealth.

Undoubtedly, it is one of the biggest and unprecedented scandals of money-laundering unearthed ever. It would be interesting to watch what action the respective governments take against the figures, companies, politicians and business cartels of their countries. Whether the Panama government or an international forum would take Mossack Fonseca to task or the respective governments would prosecute those companies and individuals whose names are in the papers.

From Pakistan three children of the incumbent Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, namely Hasan Nawaz Sharif, Hussain Nawaz Sharif and daughter Marian Safdar have been mentioned in the Panama Leaks. From India there are 500 industrialists, Bollywood actors, Politicians who used the service of Mossack Fonseca to hide their wealth. This list includes Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya, Rai KP Singh, Anurag Kejriwal and many others.  

In Pakistan there is a massive backlash from the politicians against Nawaz Sharif and his family. Imran Khan, the Chairman of the PTI and some of his colleagues have been most aggressive and have demanded by the NAB to immediately launch an investigation into the recent revelations about Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family’s alleged offshore wealth.

Calling for prime Minister’s resignation, the PTI chief has asked the prime minister to reveal to the nation how such huge sums were transferred abroad.  The Chief of Jamaat-i-Islam Siraj-ul-haq has joined the chorus of bitter condemnation and scathing censure.

Besides PTI, Sheikh Rashid, the PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto, Ayaz Amir a columnist and Sirjul-Haq the Chief of Jamat-e-Islami among others have castigated the prime minister on formation of one man judicial commission. They rejected this decision of Nawaz Sharif  and opined that it was going to be mere an eye wash in probing the truth about the serious accusation of money laundering as leaked in Panama Papers.

It looks like a sudden bolt from the blue for Nawaz Sharif government already caught up in unbridled religious militancy and continuous lawlessness and unremitting. There could a possibility that opposition might force either derailing the PMLN government or his resignation as the prime minister.

The allegations of the opposition members though legitimate look like a political move to embarrass Nawaz Sharif personally and to replace him. Perhaps it is the most embarrassing and trying time for Mian Nawaz Sharif and his children although there are many other heads of states or the government caught into this sudden whirlwind of hug scam.

Although the three children of Nawaz Sharif have tried to clarify their position yet the barrage of incriminations against Sharif family seems to be bulging. Their explanation is that they had been doing their business out of Pakistan for about twenty years and their wealth was not transferred from Pakistan but earned abroad. Mariam Safdar in her press statement said that “the info provided by leaks does NOT say any wrongdoing involved. Distortion is willful that a couple of media channels are using to settle scores"

In a televised address to the nation Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced to constitute a Judicial Commission to probe ‘allegations’ being faced by his family members in the backdrop of Panama Papers leak.

But how far and effective this explanation would be to convince the critics and whether the storm would finally subside or not cannot be predicted   

In the wake of this mega bombshell of concealment of wealth, the Iceland's prime minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson has resigned. There could be many more resignations in the time to come.

The writer is a senior journalist, former editor of Diplomatic Times and a former diplomat.This and other articles by the writer can also be read at his blog www.uprightopinion.com.