NAB expects tax scam to be ‘worth billions’

Says seeds of corruption in tax registries go to the senior level

LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Lahore sought the records of other towns of Lahore for further investigations in the Wagah Town Scam.

NAB had last week arrested Shalamar Town Assistant Commissioner Safdar Virk for embezzlement in tax registries.



The arrested AC was on remand for further investigations. An investigator told The Express Tribune that they have sought the record of other towns to expand the scope of their investigations after leads were obtained from arrested suspects.

“When NAB started investigations into the scam after the arrest of a clerk, Fahad Saleem, over an anonymous application, they found embezzlement worth millions of rupees,” he said.

So far, five suspects have been arrested, including an assistant commissioner, and investigations revealed that this was just the “tip of the iceberg”.

The probe suggested that similar embezzlement was committed in other towns of Lahore. Initially, the scam was believed to be worth millions after the arrest of a clerk. Later, it was learnt that the seeds of corruption reached up to the assistant commissioner level and the scam could go into the billions.  It is expected that other “big guns” will be involved in the matter.



Lahore Deputy Commissioner’s Spokesman Imran Maqbool confirmed that NAB was checking the records.

An investigator, explaining the embezzlement, said that there were three types of taxes on registries; local, provincial and federal. The suspects were not submitting these taxes to the government exchequer.

The scam came forth when they received an application with evidence attached. Acting on the application, NAB started investigations and arrested a Wagah Town clerk named Fahad Saleem. After revelations of the arrested clerk, NAB arrested a registry moharar named Khalid Mehmood and two others identified as Abid Ali and Abdul Khaliq on May 15.

On October 3, assistant commissioner Shalamar Town Safdar Virk was also taken into custody. After the arrest of Virk, the NAB spokesperson said AC he was involved in embezzling millions of rupees in connivance with other officials. The suspects had filed bogus entries during the registry process.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 14^th, 2017.