Probing corruption: NAB files reference against suspended NA official

Suspended deputy secretary has not justified how he earned Rs26.8m found in his bank account.

ISLAMABAD:

Tariq Ayub Khan Khakwani, the suspended deputy secretary of the National Assembly, has failed to justify how he earned Rs26.8 million found in his salaried bank account to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) investigators.

As a result, NAB’s Rawalpindi unit has filed a reference against him in the accountability court, for which he has to appear on January 2 for the hearing. His case was recently moved from Rawalpindi to Islamabad as the accountability court was shifted.

In its recently-concluded investigations, NAB unveiled that Khakwani had failed to justify the presence of the sum in his account. “He said his father was a businessman who gave him the money, but when checked, his father’s bank account showed no such transactions,” a NAB official said.

Khakwani could not provide any evidence to prove the transaction was legal. The bureau told the accountability court that Khakwani was also involved in illegally acquiring a residential plot worth Rs6.3 million from the housing ministry in 1990 by providing a fake certificate, showing him as an employee of the federal government.



NAB took up Khakwani’s case on an anonymous complaint, in which the complainant accused that he had accumulated wealth through illegal means and showed no means of income in his tax returns.

However, Khakwani rejected the allegations through his counsel. He maintained that NAB’s reference did not provide any evidence against him.

“Khakwani said NAB’s reference only said he earned money through illegal sources but did not identify the sources,” a NAB official stated.

His counsel has asked the court to acquit Khakwani from the case.



Sources in the National Assembly Secretariat said Khakwani was very influential. “He might get out of this case. He always had such officers from the FIA, police and others in his pocket,” an official said, requesting anonymity.

Khakwani was suspended two months ago by the National Assembly secretary after his alleged involvement in the embezzlement of Rs320 million was proved by an internal investigation committee. He was accused of siphoning off the sum from the National Assembly’s housing project that he was heading.

The investigation committee headed by MNA Sheikh Waqas Akram concluded that Khakwani had personally embezzled the amount, following which he was suspended.

Sources in the National Assembly Secretariat said Khakwani, when recruited, was commonly known as a “metric pass PRO” among the secretariat staff. However, he was very close to former premier Yousaf Raza Gilani, “so much so that some of Gilani’s personal businesses were in his name,” the anonymous official claimed.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 30^th, 2012.