NICL scandal: Land bought at thrice its value

New valuation at Rs560 million, compared with Rs984.9 million earlier.

LAHORE:


The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) said the 20-kanal and 2-marla piece of land sold by Mohsin Habib Warraich was actually worth Rs560 million for which the National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) paid Rs1.6 billion, raising the difference in actual value and the paid amount by Rs500 million to over a billion.


FIA officials said that the land’s new worth was determined by Nespak.

An earlier valuation done by the same company had put the land’s value at Rs984.9 million, which had been rejected by the FIA investigating team. The team then called for a fresh valuation report. The FIA has so far recovered an amount of Rs84 million from the Warraich family.


Sources said that the FIA investigators also recorded statements of Nespak officials under Section 161 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

They said that the earlier report was compiled in January this year and the delay in providing the said report was not on the part of Nespak, but the NICL management.

After recording the statements, the FIA investigators have decided to initiate action against NICL’s acting chairman, Tariq Iqbal Puri, who is also the chief executive of the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP), sources in FIA told The Express Tribune.

The sources also said that efforts had been made for the recovery of the remaining Rs420 million from the accused. They added that according to the statement of Muhammad Maalik, the manager of Chaudhry Moonis Elahi’s firm, after withdrawing an amount of Rs320 million from the money received by Mohsin Habib Warraich, he had handed the money over to Moonis Elahi.

The FIA investigators claimed that the dues would soon be recovered from Mohsin Habib Warraich and other accused involved in the NICL land scandal.

Published in The Express Tribune, 5th, March 2011.
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