National Assembly Employees Housing Scheme: Senior officials accused of embezzlement

Report prepared by sub-committee to be submitted to the NA today.

ISLAMABAD: Four senior officials and a dozen others have been found directly involved in the financial scam of the National Assembly Employees Housing Scheme (NAEHS).

Former Deputy Commissioner Islamabad Assadullah Faiz, two former administrators of the scheme, Tariq Ayub Khakwani and Shahid Jinali, and Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Administration Circular Registrar Malik Din were named in a report prepared by a four-member National Assembly House and Library sub-committee, which met on Tuesday in Islamabad with Deputy Speaker National Assembly Faisal Karim Kundi in the chair.

The four-member committee, led by Member National Assembly Sheikh Waqas, had been constituted by Speaker National Assembly Dr Fehmida Mirza some nine months back to probe into the financial scam of NAEHS and will submit its report to the National Assembly on Wednesday.

The committee recommended that the named officials be immediately suspended from their service and that the embezzled money be recovered from them. Khakwani has already been suspended due to his direct involvement in the corruption.

Talking to media, Waqas said, “Almost 95 per cent of the people involved in the society affairs were found guilty of corruption and the committee has recommended serious action against them.”

He added that in addition to these four officers, more than 12 people were found involved in corruption in NAEHS.

He added that the committee has recommended entrusting the case to Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to recover the embezzled money. He added that the committee had asked the Minsitry of Interior to immediately put the names of the persons named in the report on the Exit Control List (ECL), to stop them from leaving the country.

Former Deputy Commissioner (DC) Islambad Assadullah Faiz is currently serving as Director General of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Tariq Khakwani and Shahid Jinalin are employees of the National Assembly.

When contacted, former DC Faiz said that it is strange to hear that his name was also recommended to be put on ECL as he had nothing to do with any corruption in the society. He added that he remained DC Islamabad for a brief time from March 2009 to June 2009. During his tenure no transaction of society land was made, he said.

He added that he intended to move the court to defend himself as “sheer injustice” was being meted out to him.

Faiz alleged that the committee stopped FIA from investigating the matter to save some influential officers including the incumbent DC Islamabad Amir Ali Ahmed and former Commissioner Islamabad Fazeel Asghar. He said that the investigation is not the prerogative of the standing committee but that of FIA.

According to the findings of the investigation, only 220-kanals of land was available when the committee took over the responsibility of looking at NAEHS’s affairs. This is against members’ investment in 1,035-kanals of land. Another 100-kanals of land was retrieved by the committee, increasing the total available land to 320-kanal.

The society had Rs340 million in bank in 2008, which had been reduced to only Rs237,000 when the committee took over the society’s affairs nine months ago.

He said payments worth Rs90 million were made to the contractor, who is still demanding another Rs40 million without having done any work on the ground. A consultant was paid Rs7 million, despite the fact that he was not technically a consultant as he did not fulfil the Capital Development Authority’s law of holding a university degree in town planning.

Moreover, some government employees were getting salaries from the society despite it being against the rules.

The records show that there were some refunds, but it does not include the identities of those to whom payments were made. A landowner Naeem Qureshi refunded Rs50 million after cancellation of a deal but of them only Rs42 million were deposited to the society account.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 2^nd, 2011.