NAB recovers Rs290m in fake accounts case

Four suspects and two companies of Sindh Roshan Programme opt for a plea bargain

ISLAMABAD: In another breakthrough, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) claims to have recovered Rs290 million in the infamous fake bank accounts case.

According to NAB Rawalpindi, four suspects and two companies of Sindh Roshan Programme have opted for a plea bargain and revealed that the financial irregularities had been carried out at the behest of PPP lawmaker Sharjeel Memon.

According to the national graft-buster, accused Abdul Sattar Qureshi, Abdul Rasheed Channa, Aslam Pervaiz Memon and Baldivo have opted for a plea bargain, while two contractor companies have also returned embezzled money.

NAB officials said that the statements of the suspects would be recorded soon after presenting them before an accountability court.

In the Sindh Roshan Programme, accused Nadeem Younus had already returned Rs60 million, while accused Abdul Shakoor after becoming an approver against Abdul Ghani Majeed and others in the fake accounts case had been released.

Meanwhile, NAB Rawalpindi on Sunday shifted former managing director of Pakistan International Airlines Ejaz Haroon to Islamabad in the fake accounts case.

He was arrested by NAB Rawalpindi from Karachi on Saturday. Haroon will be produced before an accountability court on Monday (today).

He has been accused of illegally allotting plots while serving as secretary Kidney Hills Housing Scheme. He is said to be a close aide of former president Asif Ali Zardari.

Sindh Roshan Programme

According to details, the Sindh government on September 22, 2014 had approved the first project of Roshan Sindh to install 20,000 solar lights by June 2016 in the major municipal and town committees across the province at a cost of Rs4 billion. Reportedly, streetlights that work on solar energy were installed on specific roads of certain cities, while the majority of the areas were ignored.

Originally, 1,000 solar lights were to be installed in districts Malir and West Karachi, 4,000 in Hyderabad division, 3,500 each in Mirpurkhas and Shaheed Benazirabad, 4,000 in Sukkur, and as many in Larkana.

This project also turned out to be the costliest of them all, with each of the installed solar bulb costing Rs0.2 million.

The second project, estimated at Rs3 billion was meant to install solar lights in Sindh’s rural areas. This project was approved on October 26, 2016, and was supposed to be completed by June 2018.

The third project, with a price-tag of Rs1.5 billion, was advertised as the second phase of the earlier scheme to install solar lights in the rural areas.

Around Rs750 million have been spent on the project from the beginning of the current year that will be completed by 2020.