FIA unearths Rs10m bribery scandal

Arrests five government officials in raid on Gujjar Khan hotel

RAWALPINDI:

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Saturday arrested five government employees, including two audit officers, for allegedly receiving and giving bribes worth over Rs10 million to cover up irregularities in the two offices of the Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO) offices.

The arrests were made during a raid at a hotel on the GT Road in Gujjar Khan, where the FIA team caught the officials red-handed while receiving bribes.

According to the FIA, the accused officials were allegedly involved in financial irregularities and were trying to cover up their misdeeds by bribing the audit team.

A case has been registered against audit officer Zeeshan Ali Akbar (grade 18) and assistant audit officer Nazar Hussain (grade 17), Ishfaq Ahmed, Jahangir Ahmed, and Saqib Zahid.

The FIA investigations revealed that two members of an audit team of the Directorate General of Audit Lahore were tasked with conducting an audit of the offices of the Manager Operations Jhelum Circle and the Regional Manager (M&T) and Transformer Reclamation Workshop, Islamabad. The officers began an audit of the two offices on August 19. However, the team members allegedly demanded bribes from the IESCO officers concerned to overlook financial irregularities and prepare a favourable audit report.

The accounts staff of XEN Gujar Khan, XEN Operation 1, and XEN Operation 2 allegedly collected more than Rs10m from the IESCO's field employees to clear financial irregularities in the audit. All the employees were allegedly involved in financial fraud to collect the money and bribe the audit team to prepare the audit report as per their wish.

The FIA team, led by Inspector Syed Arsalan Kazmi, was present in plain clothes at a private hotel in Gujjar Khan, where the accused officials had to receive bribes from the three IESCO officials. The FIA team intervened over time, introduced themselves and searched the three bags found on the car seat of the suspects, recovering an amount of Rs10.475m.

The accused officials are currently in FIA custody and are being questioned about their involvement in the bribery scandal.

During an initial investigation, the audit officers confessed to receiving the amount as a bribe to overlook financial irregularities and prepare a favourable audit report for the two IESCO offices.

Three IESCO employees, who gave the bribe, revealed that the bribe money was collected from the IESCO field staff to cover up their corruption.

The arrested accused will be presented in court and their physical remand will be obtained. FIA officials said more corrupt government officers would be arrested based on the revelations made by the accused.