Suleman Sharif: 'Pakistan treated wealth creation as a sin'

A business family first, a political family second

The episode opens with Muzamil establishing the context he has been building across several conversations on political dynasties — previous guests included Bilal Mistry and Monis Elahi. Today’s guest is Suleman Shehbaz Sharif, son of the sitting prime minister and the person who has been running the family’s commercial operations.

Suleman’s own biography is a compressed version of the family’s contradictions. He grew up in Lahore in a large joint family, went to Government College, then to Oxford where he read politics, philosophy and economics with a focus on South Asian politics. He always intended to enter politics. But when he returned to Pakistan, a family decision was made: his brother Hamza would go into electoral politics, and Suleman would look after the business. “Somebody had to pay the bills,” he says, with a directness that sets the tone for the rest of the conversation.

The Ittehad foundry, nationalisation, and starting again

Before the politics, there was the steel. Suleman traces the family’s commercial roots to 1937 — before Pakistan existed — when his grandfather migrated from Amritsar and established what would become Ittehad Steel Works and Ittehad Foundry. By the 1970s, Ittehad employed ten thousand permanent workers and was, in Suleman’s telling, larger than Tata or Birla in the region.

Then came Bhutto’s nationalisation. Ittehad was large enough to be a target. Overnight, the family lost the business. What Suleman emphasises is what happened next: while other business families left for Europe, America, or Dubai, his grandfather stayed and put up six textile mills while Bhutto was still prime minister. When Zia reversed nationalisation, Ittehad was returned. When Benazir came to power, the foundry hit trouble again — raw materials were held up at ports for months, the factory shut down. The family rebuilt again.

By 2008, when Suleman took over, the joint family had divided its assets. He inherited a sugar plant that had been installed in 1990 and needed significant upgrading. That became the platform on which he built.

Sugar, bagasse power, and the free market question

Muzamil pushes Suleman on one of the more contested questions in Pakistani agribusiness: should the sugar industry be deregulated? The support price for sugarcane and the government-controlled retail price for sugar are both politically entrenched. Suleman’s answer is unambiguous in principle but conditional in practice.

“I agree with the free market mechanism,” he says. But he insists the logic must be applied to both ends at once. Sugarcane constitutes roughly 85 percent of the cost of producing sugar. If you free the output price while keeping the input price controlled — or vice versa — the system breaks. “It’s not going to work,” he says flatly. “You can’t regulate one end and leave the other.”

His explanation for why deregulation has never happened despite politicians across parties nominally supporting it comes down to rural vote-bank politics. An assured support price is, in effect, an insurance policy for farmers, and farmers deliver votes. “I think that’s the main reason,” he says. “Because you get votes through this politics. India is the same.”

The conversation then widens. Suleman had diversified beyond sugar into dairy farming under the brand Anhaar, animal feed, and — most significantly — a bagasse-based power plant that feeds electricity into the national grid using sugarcane waste. No imported fuel, no gas, no coal. He frames this as the kind of dynamic, high-value-added industry Pakistan should be actively supporting rather than merely tolerating.

The NCA investigation: nineteen months, no finding

Muzamil addresses what he calls the elephant in the room. Suleman had recently been cleared of money-laundering allegations in the United Kingdom. What actually happened?

Suleman’s account is detailed. After Imran Khan’s government came to power in 2018, Pakistan’s NAB and the Ministry of Interior wrote to the UK’s National Crime Agency alleging that Suleman had laundered five hundred billion rupees. The NCA opened an investigation, obtained orders from Westminster Court, and froze Suleman’s UK accounts — accounts he says were fully declared in his FBR filings in Pakistan.

The investigation ran for nineteen months. The NCA’s international command unit travelled to Switzerland, America, Italy, and Dubai. “It was state of Pakistan versus Suleman Sharif in England,” he says. At the end of it, the NCA went to court and withdrew the case unilaterally, stating there was no evidence of corruption, kickbacks, or proceeds of crime. The NCA then asked Suleman not to claim costs against them in exchange for closing the matter. He agreed.

“After eighteen months, NCA said in court: there is no evidence of corruption, kickbacks, proceed of crime, and we are withdrawing this case.”

Muzamil presses him on the domestic side — specifically the allegation that large sums were found in the accounts of low-level employees within his companies. Suleman’s response is sharp: he says that perception was built entirely through a state-sponsored media trial, and that anyone who actually read the investigation documents rather than watched television coverage would find the allegations were fabricated. “All lies,” he says. “A very sophisticated and intelligent media campaign.” He adds that NAB’s reference, which was copy-pasted and sent to the NCA, is still sitting in Pakistani courts four years later with nothing proved.

Later in the discussion, Muzamil raises the Daily Mail defamation case. Suleman confirms that the paper apologised specifically over allegations that the Sharif family had siphoned off UK earthquake relief funds — the central thrust of the defamation suit. He acknowledges the paper did not retract every line of the article, but says the earthquake funds allegation was the main target and that apology was obtained.

Wealth creation as a sin

One of the sharpest passages in the conversation comes when Muzamil asks why Pakistan cannot find the political will to take painful but necessary economic reforms. Suleman’s answer pivots away from the technical and toward the cultural.

“I think the biggest problem is that in Pakistan we have treated wealth creation as a sin.” He argues that Pakistani entrepreneurs who build large businesses face harassment from NAB, FIA, and other agencies rather than encouragement. The result is that capital and talent leave. He contrasts this with India, where Tata acquired Jaguar and Land Rover, Mittal took over Arcelor, and Adani bought ports in Australia. Pakistani businesses, he says, cannot even grow domestically without being hounded.

His prescription is structural: privatisation of loss-making state entities, reduction in the size and regulatory footprint of government, and ease of doing business. He uses the example of incorporating a company — five minutes online in London, effectively impossible in Pakistan without navigating layers of red tape. “The world has changed,” he says.

The 2017 regime change and the roots of the current crisis

Muzamil raises the question of Pakistan’s economic management and the current finance minister. Suleman’s answer keeps returning to a single event: the removal of Nawaz Sharif in 2017 on the basis of an iqama — a residency permit — rather than any proven corruption.

“Economic progress and economic stability can never be achieved without political progress and political stability.” He argues that the 2017 disruption triggered a political crisis that became an economic crisis whose aftershocks are still running in 2023. He is pointed about the numbers: he says the PTI government borrowed a net twenty-five thousand billion rupees in fresh sovereign debt and asks what asset was built against it. “You tell me one thing. Show us one thing.”

Muzamil pushes back, noting that the so-called golden period of PMLN’s 2013–2017 tenure coincided with historically low oil prices and the early momentum of CPEC — external tailwinds rather than structural reform — and that the government left behind a record current account deficit and depleted reserves. Suleman partly concedes the deficit point, attributing it to machinery imports for capacity building, but disputes that the reserves were depleted at the time of Nawaz Sharif’s departure. The exchange is one of the more substantive economic arguments in the conversation, with neither side fully conceding.

Dynastic politics: openly in favour

By the end of the conversation, Muzamil turns to the question of political dynasties. He cites the examples of Sri Lanka and the Indian National Congress, and notes that analysts within PMLN itself are reportedly frustrated that succession always begins and ends with the Sharif name.

Suleman’s answer is direct: “I am personally in favour of dynasty and I openly admit it.” His argument is that in a democratic system, voters choose. Nobody is forced at gunpoint to vote for Nawaz Sharif or Maryam Nawaz. If a politician’s child has talent and ability, excluding them purely on grounds of lineage is itself a form of discrimination.

He also makes a counter-argument about sacrifice. Maryam Nawaz was arrested, sent to prison, and disqualified from elections — later exonerated. Hamza Shehbaz was jailed at eighteen years old, a minor, for nine months in Adiala. Suleman himself spent four years outside Pakistan. “Who will give me those four years back?” he asks. “My children paid, my wife paid.”

He turns the dynastic criticism back on PTI, noting that every party in Pakistan — including PTI — contains families with multiple seats across one household. “In South Punjab, go and look. Every party has them.”

On the question of whether PMLN should restructure its internal processes to allow broader competition for leadership, Suleman points to Miftah Ismail as evidence that the party does elevate outsiders — a Karachi businessman whom, he says, almost nobody knew before PMLN made him finance minister twice.

The establishment, the charter of economy, and 2050

Muzamil asks Suleman directly about the establishment’s role in Pakistani politics. Suleman acknowledges it plainly: “I believe the establishment has a role in Pakistan.” He says mistakes have been made on both sides — by politicians and by the military — and that the most recent mistake was the engineered installation of PTI in 2018, which the establishment itself has since acknowledged. His prescription is collaboration rather than confrontation, but with defined spheres of influence.

His proposed mechanism for economic stability is a charter of economy — a document signed by all major parties, guaranteed by key stakeholders including the armed forces and judiciary, that places certain economic decisions beyond the reach of day-to-day political competition. “No politics on these things,” he says. Privatisation, power sector reform, and the size of government would be locked in regardless of which party holds office.

On elections, he says he sees no reason for delay and that PMLN is preparing. On the caretaker name controversy, he says the legal process will run its course as it has before.

The episode closes with Muzamil’s standard question about the future. Suleman’s answer is personal before it is political. His grandfather did not leave after nationalisation. He himself came back after four years in England with cases still pending. “We have faith in this country,” he says. He predicts Pakistan will be a global player within fifteen to twenty years, driven by the talent of its youth. “I have no doubt that inshallah Pakistan will be a global player in fifteen to twenty years.”