Man gets five years in NICFC graft case

An accountability court in Lahore on Saturday sentenced the main suspect in the defunct National Industrial Cooperative Finance Corporation (NICFC) case reference filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to five years imprisonment.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs88.4 million on Abdul Rehman. The convict was taken into custody by police in the courtroom and sent to jail. The co-accused, Zahid Hussain was declared a fugitive.

NAB Lahore had filed a corruption reference against Abdul Rehman in 2017. He was facing charges of illegal allotment of the defunct corporation’s land.

The court ordered the recovery of full amount of money acquired through corruption from the convict because of NAB Lahore’s effective presentation of the case.

In 2002, NAB had filed a reference of wilful default to the tune of Rs71.86 million against chairman of the defunct NICFC Chaudhry Abdul Majeed and co-accused Azizul Haq Qureshi.

According to the reference, Qureshi obtained a loan from NICFC from 1982 to 1984. According to the NAB, the loan was obtained in flagrant violation of rules by the accused with the abetment of Majeed.

On November 6, 1991, when the cooperatives institution collapsed, the total amount due against Qureshi stood at Rs20.36 million.

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After adding mark-up at the rate of 20% per annum, the total liability of the accused on June 30, 2002, had been calculated to the tune of Rs71.86 million.

Majeed had already been sentenced to 17 years’ rigorous imprisonment and fined Rs565 million in four corruption references decided by an accountability court in July that year.

In April 2004, Punjab Cooperatives Board for Liquidation Chairman Brigadier (retd) Farooq Maan had announced that cheques amounting to Rs200 million would be distributed among as many as 1500 to 1700 people affected by the defunct cooperative societies.

He had said between 2001 and 2004, the board had paid more than Rs1.21 billion to the people affected by various defunct cooperative societies.

Elaborating further, he had said 75% of the affected people belong to nine defunct cooperative societies including the NICFC and National Industrial Cooperative Credit Corporation (NICCC) had been made 50% payment while the remaining would be paid soon. Similarly, the affected people of the Mercantile Cooperative Finance Corporation had been paid 100%.

He added that it was decided and approved by the cooperatives judge in 2001 to make the payments on a 50% basis keeping in view the expected generation of funds.