NHA land scam sent to NAB, Senate panel told

The National Highway Authority (NHA) has sent the case of Rs4.09 billion corruption in Sukkur-Hyderabad Motorway project to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and also informed the Federal Investigation Agency in order to put the persons involved in the scam on the Exit Control List (ECL).

NHA Chairman Khurram Agha told the Senate Standing Committee on Communications that recovery had been made from the embezzled amount. He added that a bank was also involved in the scam as the officials knew that those were the government funds.

“The day we came to know about this matter, we immediately sent the case to the NAB chairman. A bank was also involved in the fraud. They knew that these are government funds,” he told the committee, which met here with its chairman Prince Ahmad Umar Ahmedzai in the chair.

The corruption scandal surfaced in November after inquiry into the complaints that NHA funds deposited in the account of the deputy commissioner (DC) for land acquisition had been misappropriated. A number of arrests, including officials of the Matiari DC office, had been made since.

Speaking at the Senate committee, Agha expressed concern that the DC and the AC [assistant commissioner] could make the cash withdrawals. The NHA chairman also said that it was a mistake why the payment was not made through cheques.

The committee chairman put off the matter until the NAB inquiry, and took up the matter related to the extension of the jurisdiction of the Motorway Police to the Kech district of Balochistan. The committee received a briefing from the inspector general of the motorway police.