Last week he delivered to the UAE Group the most vibrant Pakistani bank, United Bank or UBL at a price everyone envied. He maneuvered through the bureaucratic maze with such skill that rival bidders were left in a daze with previous highest bidder opting to boycott the final bidding process. Out of the blue, at the 11th hour, the UAE group emerged and conquered.

Without Aziz's quiet intervention, the UAE Sheikhs would never have got the UBL deal. It was a favour par excellence because the winning group was actually a huge defaulter of the bank it had just purchased.

The huge UBL loan of US $300 million, given in the early 70s to the same group of Sheikhs, had snowballed into billions and was written off by Aziz just months ago, despite a letter written by President Musharraf to the UAE President Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahiyan to ask his Royal Prince to pay it back. View General Musharraf's Letter It never was. The bank losses were made up by tax payers' money and then the group was allowed to bid, and win, the bank, through jugglery of rules and an artistic display of edging out the rivals, while maintaining a deceptive aura of transparency. View Minutes where write off was approved Page1 | Page2 | Page3 | Page4

Before he delivered the UBL to the UAE Sheikhs, Aziz just barely missed serving his Saudi friends, led by Prince Sultan bin Turki bin Abdul Aziz, who made a fantastic paper bid of almost $10 billion to buy Pakistan's leading Habib Bank, the Islamabad New City Project, an oil refinery and a 5-star hotel before the fateful day of September 11.

Aziz had begun secret negotiations with the Saudi Group and had even persuaded President Musharraf to invite the Prince to Pakistan. The deal was cooking fast and the Saudis had allocated some $300 million for immediate investment in Pakistan but an ex-ISI chief, Pakistan's Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Lt. General Asad Durrani, intervened, and the Aziz scheme was foiled. View SA Tribune's earlier Story

Aziz had almost succeeded. The Saudis had been given assurances. Secret negotiations on these projects were going on while publicly the Government had to privatize them through a process of transparent bidding. View Saudi letter

His third major deal, the privatization of Pakistan Telecom (PTCL) is yet to come but his moves have already been marked, and once again, by another ex-ISI chief, who is trying to neutralize him.

The Hariri Group of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri is the main contender for PTCL and the Prime Minister has visited Pakistan several times to ensure that his interests in PTCL are protected. General Musharraf was also made to visit Lebanon, just to reassure the Hariris on persuasion of Aziz.

The bid price of PTCL is so high there are not many bidders but Hariris have been allowed in the contest although they just barely qualify to meet the requirement of running a larger telecom company than PTCL itself.

But Aziz may not have much time to do to PTCL what he has done to UBL. A change of government is on the cards and it is not certain how Aziz may fit into an elected government although he has been pushing his name in the media as a possible prime minister nominee of General Musharraf.

If General Musharraf nominates him as the next PM, the grant of PTCL to the Hariris of Lebanon would be a done deal. But if Musharraf fails to keep Aziz in the power game after the October elections, the future of the deal may be uncertain.

The reason is that major players like the ex-ISI Chief and Railways Minister Lt. General