Land scam: NAB arrests former PDA director general

Qazi Laiq is accused of allotting five kanals to a contractor illegally.

PESHAWAR: The former DG of Peshawar Development Authority (PDA), Qazi Laiq, has been arrested by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in an illegal plot allotment case.

The arrest was made on Friday after Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Syed Afsar Shah rejected an extension in Laiq’s pre-arrest bail.

The former DG is allegedly involved in leasing out a valuable plot in Hayatabad Township, adjacent to Iqra University, without fulfilling all the relevant legal requirements.

Collusion

In June, NAB had arrested former PDA director Ijaz Afzal Khan and contractor Raz Muhammad Durrani for the allotment of five kanals of the land to Durrani. The allotment was allegedly made in violation of legal formalities and at a nominal price for a 33-year period, causing Rs75 million in losses to the exchequer.

Khan and Durrani were granted bail on September 24 by the Peshawar High Court on the condition of furnishing bonds of Rs5 million each.

According to a statement issued by NAB, the investigation revealed five kanals had been allotted to Durrani through a non-transparent bidding process. The statement added only three bidders submitted their bids in response to the advertisement; the selection committee did not consider two of the bidders and selected the last remaining bidder instead of publishing another advertisement.

The accused, Qazi Laiq, in connivance with others forwarded the technical and financial committee’s report for approval without mentioning the discrepancies, the statement read. “The accused with mala fide intention accepted the forged experience certificates of the bidder and failed to verify its genuineness, thus, facilitating allotment of lease to contractor Raz Muhammad Durrani,” read the NAB statement.

The land was approved by the chief minister to be used for installing family entertainment facilities, however, after getting a lease from the PDA, Durrani paved the way for utilising it for commercial purposes and obtained a no-objection certificate to establish a bank on it.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2015.