Court summons seven accused in Rs14.396m reference

By Akhtar Amin
June 30, 2016

PESHAWAR: An Accountability Court Wednesday summoned seven accused including former secretary health, who is currently serving as additional secretary cabinet division, in a corruption case after the National Accountability Bureau Khyber Pakhtunkhwa filed a reference of Rs14.396 million against them in the court.

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The accused include additional secretary cabinet division Syed Sohail Altaf, principal Bannu Medical College Dr Shafiullah, former chief planning officer health department Rahim Zada, former additional secretary health Hussain Shah, head of the Pathology Department Dr Shah Jehan, and lab technicians Asghar Khan and Muhammad Ibrar Khan.

The court asked the accused to appear on July 14 for handing over copies of the reference and then fixing a date for framing charge against them in the case.

The NAB Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had filed the reference after completion of investigation in the case. In the reference, NAB explained that it conducted an inquiry on a complaint referred by the Peshawar High Court (PHC) regarding corruption and corrupt practices concerning procurement of medicines and other things in Khalifa Gul Nawaz Teaching Hospital and Bannu Medical College.

According to the NAB, the inquiry revealed procurement of useless laboratory kits for Bannu Medical College at exorbitant rates. It said the inquiry was subsequently converted into investigation.

It pointed out that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government allocated Rs47.444 million for the purchase of PCR machine out of the total sanctioned approved budget of Rs336.7 million for establishment of Bannu Medical College.

“The purchase committee headed by secretary health was notified on November 8, 2006 for purchase of equipment for Bannu Medical College as per Goods, Works and Service Rules 2003. The HBV, HCV, MTB, CMV, DNA, RNA and Salmonella Laboratory kits worth Rs15.7 million were purchased through two advertisements,” the NAB stated in the reference.

It added that laboratory kits costing Rs12.836 million were purchased through the first advertisement on October 16, 2008 while another batch worth Rs2.92 million was purchased after floating the second advertisement on January 29, 2009.

It maintained that expensive HBV, HCV, MTB, CMV, DNA, RNA and Salmonella Laboratory kits were purchased in bulk for Bannu Medical College without any justification or need and demand assessment. The NAB inquiry revealed that the PC-1 of the scheme does not mention any type of kits that were actually purchased from leftover funds of PCR machine in the Forensic Science Department.

“Investigations have revealed that these kits were purchased on exorbitant rates and some had short expiry dates,” the NAB said. It added that the accused including Syed Sohail Altaf, Dr Shafiullah, Rahim Zada and Hussain Shah being members of the purchase committee illegally and fraudulently purchased kits on exorbitant rates by unduly benefiting suppliers
and allowing them profit margin as high as 130 percent causing losses to the public exchequer.

It was claimed in the NAB reference that Dr Shafiullah, Principal of Bannu Medical College, in connivance with the accused Sheh Jehan and Mohammad Ibrar tried to cover up the crime by preparing fake record showing the kits with short expiry dates replaced with other kits of long expiry dates.

The NAB stated that during investigation six of the accused including Dr Umar Ali, ex-Principal Bannu Medical College, Dr Jamilur Rehman, retired head of the Biochemistry Department Khyber Medical College, Dr Nargis Parveen, retired head of Psychology Department Khyber Medical College, Muhammad Yaseen, retired XEN electrical workshop health department, Arshad Khan, owner of M/S Medilab Services, and Nauman Lodhi, owner of Friends Traders, voluntarily returned the embezzled funds through plea bargain.

However, it noted that Sohail Altaf, additional secretary cabinet division, Hussain Shah, former additional secretary health department, and
a consultant of the
department Rahim Zada are on pre-arrest bail obtained from the Peshawar High Court in the case.

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