Mismanagement: 7 ambulances being used as public transport

NAB, Rangers raid Haji Ali Hassan Zardari's house and recover vehicles donated during 2011 floods

HYDERABAD: Seven ambulances that were donated during the 2011 floods are plying passengers in Nawabshah, revealed a National Accountability Bureau (Nab) raid on Sunday night.

The raid was conducted by a Nab team and the Rangers at the residence of a reportedly close aide of Pakistan Peoples Party co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari. At least three men were also reportedly detained during the raid at Haji Ali Hassan Zardari's residence in Ghulam Hyder Shah Colony.

These details have, however, yet to be verified as the local police and Haji Ali's manager, Habibullah Hajano, denied it took place. "We don't know about any such raid," said DSP Yar Mohammad Rind.

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This is the second such disclosure of alleged misappropriation of foreign donations aimed for relief of the disaster victims in a span of few days. Earlier, former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani handed back a necklace that the Turkish first lady's had donated for victims of floods in 2010 after keeping it for years.

These ambulances were handed over to the Nawabshah district administration by former federal information minister Firdous Ashiq Awan, during her week-long stay in the city after the floods hits the province in 2011. The ambulances, after their conversion to passenger vehicles, started plying from Nawabshah to Sehwan town of Jamshoro.

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The authorities are also said to have impounded the vehicles.

The director general of Provincial Disaster Management Authority, Syed Salman Shah, told The Express Tribune that they have checked their records. "There is no such record of the ambulances," he said. The National Disaster Management Authority was unavailable for comments.

Around 900,000 people in more than 4,000 villages in 51 union councils of Nawabshah, which has been officially renamed as Shaheed Benazirabad, were affected during the 2011 calamity. There were 41 deaths as well, according to the official estimates but the unofficial figures then were reported in hundreds.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 30^th, 2015.