NA session: Corrupt bureaucrats named and shamed

At least four senior officials and a dozen others have been found directly involved in a housing scheme scam.

ISLAMABAD: The opposition in the National Assembly has urged the government to ensure that bureaucrats found guilty by a parliamentary probe, of embezzling Rs300 million in a capital housing scheme, are punished.

At least four senior officials and a dozen others have been found directly involved in the National Assembly Employees Housing Scheme (NAEHS) scam, said a probe report presented to the house by a committee.

Headed by Pakistan Muslim League-Q’s Waqas Akram, the panel had been investigating the matter for several months. Opposition Leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan called for penalising all officials without any ‘favour and fear’ after Waqas presented the report in the National Assembly.

“The time has come to introduce a culture of rigorous accountability by punishing all those who have been plundering the national wealth,” Nisar said.

The report revealed that former Deputy Commissioner Islamabad Assadullah Faiz, two former administrators of the scheme, Tariq Ayub Khakwani and Shahid Jilani and Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Administration Circular Registrar Malik Din were the main culprits in the scam.

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

Waqas also said that the committee was approached by several parliamentarians during its probe with requests to favour corrupt officials. However he did not disclose the parliamentarians’ names.

According to findings of the investigation, only 220 kanals of land was available when the committee took over the society’s affairs nine months ago. This is against members’ investment in 1,035 kanals of land. 100 kanals of land was retrieved by the committee.

The society had Rs340 million in bank in 2008, which had been reduced to only Rs237,000 when the committee took over. The report 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 did not fulfill the Capital Development Authority’s criteria of holding a university degree in town planning.

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 only Rs42 million were deposited to the society account.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 5^th, 2011.