NAB raids HMC office, seizes record

Land Senior Director Qamaruddin Shaikh was booked on corruption charges

HYDERABAD: In a Rs766 million scam involving officials of the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, a team from the National Accountability Bureau raided HMC's office in Latifabad, and the residence of a connected private citizen. The team collected office records from former senior director for land, Qamaruddin Shaikh's office and on Tuesday raided the residence of Muhammad Arif, Shaikh's alleged frontman who owns a Haleem shop in the city.



An official of NAB, who requested anonymity, told The Express Tribune that Arif escaped arrest. According to the NAB's reference, Shaikh and his associates caused losses to the exchequer by submitting fake bills and invoices and receiving undue appointments and promotions. Shaikh, who is on bail in the reference, also allegedly changed his date of birth to extend his service by nine years.

According to NAB's investigation, "Shaikh unlawfully and fraudulently got appointed as Assistant Land Management Officer BS 16 in HMC [in 1989] without the post being advertised". Shaikh helped another accused Iqbal Hussain, a contractor, to unlawfully receive a Rs26.7m contract causing a loss of Rs19.58m. The contractor allegedly netted roughly Rs118.1m with Shaikh's help in several contracts.

Muhammad Javaid Qamar, a BS 18 official of HMC, allegedly received undue promotions starting from BS-11 with Shaikh's connivance, and caused a loss of Rs46.66 million through phony bills and fake invoices. The NAB, in an earlier raid at his house, recovered cash amounting to Rs18.39m, 300 Saudi Riyal, 2610 Dirhams and USD500.

Meanwhile, Arif bought a bungalow in block III, Gulistan-e-Jauhar, Karachi, but the property was actually paid for by Shaikh, according to the NAB. "He [Arif] failed to adduce any plausible and convincing justification to NAB sustaining the finance of his bungalow from his hard-earned money."



Moreover, Shaikh also changed his date of birth to extend his service by nine years in collusion with NADRA's staff Muhammad Ilyas Arain and Asghar Ali. Both of them are now deceased.

Shaikh claims his date of birth is November 4, 1967. But NAB's investigation shows that he joined Liaquat University Hospital in August, 1983, as an almoner, declaring a B.Com qualification and five years of work experience as an accountant. "In his job application he showed his age as 24 years in 1983. As per matric certificate, he passed in 1978, [and] he was born on November 4, 1958."

He also mentioned his 1958 birth date in his application to the then mayor of HMC, Aftab Ahmed Shaikh, in 1989 for the job of Assistant Land Management Officer (ALMO) for which he was directly appointed. He subsequently received promotions with allegedly spurious academic qualifications and without meeting criteria as laid down in the rules.

An official source informed The Express Tribune that another reference is likely to be filed against alleged land scams of Shaikh.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 19^th, 2018.