Land scandal: NICL intentionally causing delays, says FIA

The holdup was said to be intentional, to save the skins of some influential people.

LAHORE:

Federal investigators believe that the acting chairman of the National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) is responsible for a delay in submitting latest land valuation report compiled by Nespak, showing that the accused still owed the government exchequer more than Rs500 million.

The discrepancy was an intentional one, meant to save the skins of some influential people accused in the land scandal involving a property spread over 20 kanals and 2 marlas which was bought by the NICL for Rs1.653 billion, officials said.

After finding the huge discrepancy, officials of the Federal Investigation (FIA) have now decided to arrest the mother and two sisters of Mohsin Habib Warraich to expedite the recovery of Rs100 million out of the total liability of Rs500 million still outstanding against the accused.

According to FIA officials, they have already recovered Rs80 million from the Warraich family, while Rs320 milion was said to have been recovered from Chaudhry Moonis Elahi, the son of former Punjab chief minister Chaudhry Pervez Elahi.

On Monday (today), a Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, will hear the NICL case.

FIA teams from Punjab and Sindh are said to have reached Islamabad in this connection.

Another case will also be registered very soon against FIA officials deployed at Karachi airport on charges of facilitating Amin Qasim Dada, a director on the NICL board, who has been declared a proclaimed offender in the multi-billion-rupee scandal.

The FIA investigation team, which is headed by additional director-general Zafar Qureshi, is learnt to have succeeded in obtaining the record relating to the escape of Amin Qasim Dada from Karachi airport even though his name was on the exit control list (ECL).

Sources said that Dada escaped from Karachi airport on December 28 last year using a fake identity in connivance with FIA staffers deployed on immigration counter at Karachi airport.

Sources said that NICL had bought the property located on the Airport Road in Lahore from Mohsin Habib Warraich despite his not participating in the procurement process. Formalities in this regard were completed much later by NICL management, according to FIA investigations.

FIA also discovered that even signatures on NICL documents were not genuine. Investigators insisted that some of the signatures on NICL documents were “pasted on documents using scanners”.

These and other facts were revealed after recording the statement of the managing director of a survey firm, Medallion Services, Hassan Isphani.

According to him, the NICL management had called for submitting a valuation report based on a piece of land measuring just one Kanal, also owned by Mohsin Habib Warraich, and situated on the Airport Road.

The land was valued at Rs60 million, but according to a “specific formula, the entire land situated in the same locality and measuring 20 kanals and 2 marlas, was assessed to be worth Rs527million.

Nespak’s latest report valued the land to be worth Rs562.5 million, creating a discrepancy in outstanding amount owed by the accused to be Rs500 million, but the Medallion Services report widened the difference to Rs520 million.

FIA officials said that the acting chairman NICL, Tariq Iqbal Puri, was summoned repeatedly, but he appeared only once before the investigators, adding that later he showed reluctance to appear before them.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 21^st, 2011.