National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) Rawalpindi division, here on Friday, took under custody the secretary of the Land Utilisation Department of the Sindh Board of Revenue, Aftab Ahmed Memon, in a case of illegal allotment of public land.
According to the press release, Memon, who is the close aide of former president Asif Ali Zardari, was arrested from Islamabad to be presented before an accountability court on Friday to seek his remand. Karachi Development Authority’s secretary, Memon, is being accused of showering favours of illegally allotted seven acres of land to frontmen of political personalities, costing the national treasury a loss of Rs800 million.
NAB officials have accused him of illegally allotting government land in favour of M/S Pink Residency among others.
He was suspected of collaborating with other members of the Sindh Government Lands Committee in offences that fall under Section 9 of the NAB Ordinance, 1999 (corruption and corrupt practices). The secretary is accused of allotting land situated in Sector 40, Scheme-33 of Karachi’s Malir district from Sector 31 and 47, Scheme-33 of Karachi’s East district.
During an interview with BBC Urdu, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, on Thursday, criticised the accountability watchdog and said that it “was only created to pressurise political parties. If the rule of law was established, there would be no problem today.” Several PPP leaders were facing investigations initiated by NAB while some were even arrested in corruption references. Last month, Sindh Assembly Speaker, Agha Siraj Durrani, was arrested for accumulating assets beyond known means.
Meanwhile, a banking court in Karachi approved the extension in the interim bail of former president Asif Ali Zardari, his sister Faryal Talpur and other accused till March 11 in a money laundering case. Zardari and his sister along with other accused are being investigated for a mega-money laundering scam, which involved over Rs 35 billion laundered through fake bank accounts. The former president’s close aides, Hussain Lawai and Anwar Majeed, are also being investigated in the scandal, and are both in police custody. A report by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) formed to investigate the scam apprised the Supreme Court that 29 fake bank accounts being used to launder money had been identified.
Published in Daily Times, March 9th 2019.
