Misappropriation: FIA arrests one in WAPDA guest house Rs4.6m scam

FIA arrest­s Tahir Rafiqu­e while his accomp­lice Sulema­n is abscon­ding; forged seals, receip­ts recove­red.

LAHORE: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Thursday arrested an employee of the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) and his accomplice for misappropriating funds of up to Rs4.6 million, sources said.

Wapda guest houses maintain records of funds generated from people staying at the houses and need to be deposited at the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP). Subsequently, receipts with relevant documents are deposited to Wapda house.

However, instead of following this procedure, sources said that Wapda employee, Suleman, the care taker of the guest house, and Tahir Rafique, his accomplice, managed to clone official stamps, whereby they forged documents, pocketing the rent. The duo managed to maintain the records in Wapda office, however auditors detected the missing funds and alerted higher authorities.

After discovering the misappropriation in the records of its guest house, Wapda Director-General M Zafar approached the FIA over the matter. On Thursday, an FIA anti-corruption raiding party arrested Rafique from Township, Lahore. Suleman is absconding.

They recovered the stamps and some of the forged receipts.

Rafique is being held in FIA's custody and will be presented before a court on Friday. They are expected to be charged for forging official seals and for misappropriating funds, causing a loss to the national exchequer.