KMC directors, gardener among eight held by FIA

Karachi
The Federal Investigation Agency’s corporate banking circle has arrested eight suspects, directors of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation’s education department as well as a gardener among them.
Sindh FIA director Shahid Hayat Khan told reporters on Saturday that these people had been booked for their involvement in a scam wherein bank accounts were opened in the names of the employees’ relatives, friends or other front persons in connivance with the staff of the Habib Bank Limited and their salaries were drawn from the KMC.
The KMC employees who have been rounded up include education director Mansoor Mirza, director Mohammad Ehsan , pay-roll director Mohammad Ameen, administration deputy director Saleem Kalay Khan, accounts deputy director Raziur Rehman, assistant director Mohammed Mazhar, clerk Hassan Ahmed and gardener Naveed Jameel. An HBL manager, Alim Hussain Qadri, has also been arrested.
The official said Khurram Arif, former education director now the KDA wing director, education assistant director Abdul Khaliq whose services had already been terminated on the charges of corruption, and HBL officer Sadaf Zehra were absconding.
Explaining their modus operandi, Hayat said these employees enter fictitious details of their relatives or other front persons in the pay-roll system through its director and generated fake employee codes.
The assistant director, also called chaudhry, prepared a bogus supplementary bill through the pay-sheet clerk, called thekedar, in the names of the front persons.
This supplementary bill was signed by the education director for further process. On the basis of the supplementary bill, the pay-roll department issued bank advices and the finance department salary cheques.
The education director issued letters to the HBL branch concerned for opening bank accounts in the names of the fake KMC employees.
The official said thousands of fake employee codes had been generated in the names of relatives and friends of Saleem Kalay Khan, Mohammad Ehsan, Mansoor Mirza and the other arrested employees. The chaudarys and thekedars collected money every month and handed it over to the education director and others. Overall, between Rs25 million and Rs30 million was being misappropriated every month through this scam.
Hayat said the education director collected around Rs3 million to Rs3.5 million every month through this fraud while the other beneficiaries included the deputy directors, pay-sheet clerks and the fake employees.
He said Naveed Jameel, a gardener in the KMC parks and horticultural department, had opened four accounts in the names of his relatives in connivance with education director Mansoor Mirza, portraying himself as an employee of the education department.
He added that Saleem Kalay Khan alias KK had opened 21 accounts in the names of his brothers, sisters, wife, brothers-in-law, mother-in-law and friends.
“Sabira Begum, Saleem’s mother-in-law, is 65 years old and he drew her salary. In total, he collected Rs700,000 in salaries from the 21 fake accounts,” Hayat said. Besides, the official added, Khan was also receiving the pension of his late father, Kalay Khan.