The business experience of Mr John Ellis was restricted to a disastrous venture in the meat industry, but in the early 1990s, the Fianna Fail TD for Sligo-Leitrim became a director of Indus Bank, a small Pakistani concern based in Karachi. But just what is Indus Bank?
It was certainly an unusual choice of director for an institution such as Indus, which was trying to establish itself in Pakistan's newly liberalised banking market. Mr Ellis appears to have had no banking experience when he joined the board and his wife Patricia was also chosen to sit on the board.
Mr Ellis was a farmer and he had recently escaped bankruptcy after his cattle-dealing and meat-processing business had foundered in 1989. Indeed, he was lucky to be still in politics. It emerged last week that National Irish Bank had discharged a debt of £262,450 in respect of Mr Ellis's meat business for a payment of £20,000. Earlier, the Moriarty tribunal had heard that other debts totalling £26,000 were also cleared, thanks to the largesse of then Taoiseach, Mr Charles Haughey.
Mr Haughey's coalition with the Progressive Democrats, which had a Dail majority of only one, could not afford the loss of Mr Ellis's seat, hence the intervention in his affairs. Under the 1923 Electoral Act, anyone declared bankrupt can be disqualified from membership of the Oireachtas.
Mr Ellis, of course, escaped this fate, but while he retained his farm and his place on the Fianna Fail back benches, he was soon to enter another business, far removed from the cattle marts of the north-west.
It is not clear when exactly Mr Ellis and his wife Patricia became non-executive directors of Indus Bank. They are likely to have joined the board either as founder members, or shortly after the bank started trading in 1992.
Either way, they joined a company which was in its infancy, with no established track record.
Indus Bank was among 10 commercial banks granted licences by the State Bank of Pakistan, the equivalent of the Central Bank, in 1991-92.
The business ran into difficulty almost immediately. In May 1992, only three months after Indus started trading, the State Bank asked it to curtail its operations. Limits were placed on its withdrawals and lending after its founding president, Mr Khursid Sohail, fell out with four directors, who later resigned. It is unclear whether Mr Ellis and his wife were already board members at this time.
Most of those on the current board of Indus are related to Mr Sohail, who remains president of the bank. His son, Mr Moham mad Ali Sohail, is director and chief operating officer and a Miss Saba Sohail is listed as company secretary. Another director is a Mrs Shama K. Sohail. The only other director is Mr Nigel C. Bryan, a businessman who lives in Wales.
Strong claims have been made about Mr Khursid Sohail in relation to the way he ran Indus Bank. He first came to prominence in the Republic in December 1994, when a former Honorary Irish Consul to Pakistan, Dr Nadeem Beg, was suing the State in the High Court over the termination of his employment that month.
Mr Sohail was described in court as a "controversial character" and suggestions were made that he had business links with Mr Ellis.
While Dr Beg's case was ultimately settled out of court, it is understood that the termination of his employment arose from complaints which had been received by the Department of Foreign Affairs about certain aspects of Dr Beg's conduct in Pakistan.
Further claims were made about Mr Sohail in a Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs letter to the Honorary Consul of Ireland in December 1997, who was Dr Beg. Under the terms of his agreement, Dr Beg remained in the post until November last year.
The letter, which The Irish Times has seen, made further strong allegations about Mr Sohail and urged the Irish consulate to investigate his activities in the Republic, where he had visited Mr Ellis.
A Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman confirmed last night that the letter was sent by Dr Beg to the Department in Dublin.
In a statement yesterday, Indus Bank said Dr Beg was associated with two former workers and a former client who had engaged in a conspiracy to defame the bank.
The statement was issued after The Irish Times established that the State Bank of Pakistan is inquiring into the affairs of Indus Bank. Indus Bank, however, denies any investigation, stating that "totally false" allegations of fraud and misappropriation had been made against it by former workers and a former client.
The State Bank of Pakistan declined to comment on the affairs of Indus Bank yesterday. However, senior figures in five separate banks in Karachi said that they understood that Indus was the subject of an inquiry by the State Bank.
The latest indications are that Indus Bank's current financial position is not healthy. According to its 1998 annual report, the bank's deposits and other accounts declined by 55 per cent from $56.35 million to $30.69 million between 1997 and 1998.
The bank, which has eight branches, was also the beneficiary of a subordinated loan worth $647,000 from an associated firm based in Wales, the Franklin Credit and Investment Company Ltd. Described as a management consulting services company, Franklin Credit and Investment Company's directors are: Mr Nigel Bryan (also an Indus director); Mr David A. Rees and Mr Desmond J. Wall. A company owned by Franklin Credit and Investment Company, Credit grade, lists Mr Khursid Sohail and his son Ali as directors, along with Mr Bryan, Mr Wall and a Mr Dennis R. Gilbert.
When contacted yesterday, Indus Bank's executive vice-president and financial controller, Mr Amin R. Khan, said the bank's financial position had improved in the first six months of this year.
He declined to explain how Mr Ellis and his wife had come to be on the board of the bank. Mr Ellis declined to respond to several phone calls yesterday.
