The Executive Board Meeting (EBM) of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was held on Thursday at NAB headquarters under the chairmanship of Justice Javed Iqbal.
Deputy chairman, prosecutor general accountability, director general operations and other senior officers attended the meeting.
It is years long set policy of the bureau that the details of the EBM-NAB meeting is shared with the people, which did not tend to hurt anyone. All the inquiries and investigations are initiated on the basis of alleged allegations which are not final. The decision to proceed ahead with the cases is taken after listening to both sides.
The EBM has authorised conducting six inquiries against various personalities including Aalia Amir wife of Aamir Khurshid, Additional Secretary Service and General Administration, Sindh, Ishaq Lashari, Ismael Lashari, former Sub Inspector Police and others. Two inquiries were ordered against the officers and officials of Port Qasim Authority, Manzoor Shah, former Chief Engineer Highways, Naseem Shah, Chairman Sindh Abadgar Board, district Mityari, officers and officials of Information Department, Sindh.
The EBM authorized closing inquiries against Dr Zahoor Ahmed , Medical In Charge, civil Hospital, Karachi and others, Muhammad Mohsin, Rahila Magsi and others due to lack of evidence.
The EBM approved referring of some inquiries against officials of Model Customs Collectorate of Exports, Owners and officials of Messers Sky Clan Global Private Limited and others, officers and officials of Model Customs Collectorate Appeasement Customs Department and others to Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for appropriate action as per law.
Justice Javed Iqbal Chairman NAB said that NAB is committed for logical conclusion of mega corruption white crime cases. NAB’s faith is corruption free Pakistan and to return the looted money from corrupt elements with iron hands. The NAB believes in concentrating on merits of case sans caring about the face behind the case and taking it to the logical conclusion.
He directed all DGs of NAB to utilize all available resources for taking the mega corruption cases to logical conclusion with stipulated time frame on the basis of solid evidence as per law. National and international reputed organizations, including the World Economic Forum, had lauded the performance of NAB, which is an honour for NAB. The NAB has directly and indirectly recovered record Rs 178 billion from corrupt elements and deposited into national exchequer during the tenure of present management of NAB with two years which is record achievement. Meanwhile, the NAB on Thursday arrested an individual allegedly involved in the Fazaia Housing Society fraud and presented the individual before an accountability court in Lahore for obtaining judicial remand.
According to a statement released by the accountability body in this regard, the suspect, identified as Muhammad Hafeez, stands accused of fraud by luring unsuspecting citizens into the housing scheme. The suspect is the brother of scheme owner Saleem Hanif.
According to NAB, Hafeez and Hanif were together involved in scams worth huge sums of money that affected at least 1,016 people affiliated with the housing scheme. “The administration of the scheme is allegedly involved in corruption worth Rs2 billion,” the bureau claimed.
Hanif is already under NAB detention. According to the bureau, Hafeez was arrested after it was found that he was the owner of a company contracted to carry out development works, worth huge sums of money, for the housing scheme that were never completed.
Earlier this month, two of the arrested suspects in the Fazaia Housing Scheme fraud case submitted a petition to the Sindh High Court (SHC) in which they stated that they are ready to return the money back to the allottees of the scheme.
The SHC had ordered freezing of the bank accounts of Fazaia Housing Scheme till further orders after the National Accountability Bureau began a new probe into the alleged fraud related to the scheme.
Suspects Chaudhry Tanvir and Bilal Tanvir were earlier arrested in relation to the probe. After the submission of their petition, the High Court sought an answer from NAB in the inquiry of the housing scheme.
The court said that it wanted to know about NAB’s response regarding the return of money, as claimed by the suspects, to the affected people. SHC had ordered freezing of the bank accounts after the allottees submitted a petition against the builders.
The petition said that they were allottees of the housing scheme and they were not being given possession of the land despite the payment of instalments worth millions of rupees. The counsel for the plaintiffs produced details of booking and instalment of challans.
