NAB arrests ex-MD of Lahore Waste Management Company

LAHORE: National Accountability Bureau Lahore on Tuesday arrested former Managing Director of Lahore Waste Management Company Muhammad Waseem Ajmal on charges of embezzling more than one billion rupees in the LWMC project.

As per information shared by the NAB, a contract for preparation of consultancy services was awarded to Lahore Waste Management Company by City District Government, Rawalpindi in 2012 which was signed in September 2012.

As per terms of reference of the contract, the consultants were supposed to prepare the rough cost estimates for the bidding purpose, and also were to prepare prequalification criteria and bidding documents, including draft agreements for the outsourcing of Solid Waste Management (SWM) services.

Whereas, the constituted core team of the collective consultancy team comprised of following members who were in true sense associated with preparation of cost estimates, bidding documents, named MD LWMC, Waseem Ajmal, CFO LWMC, Rana Muhammad Arif, GM Procurement & Contract LWMC, Col (R) Muhammad Tahir and GM legal operations Khalid Majeed.

Further to above, being former MD and team leader of Lahore Waste Management Company accused Waseem Ajmal held a meeting on 26th April, 2014, in which accused intentionally concealed the details from the other board members of meeting.

The accused person intentionally concealed the fact that the initial cost estimate regarding project’s labour cost of M/s Albayrak which was already included in the initial cost estimates was got re-issued during bidding process.

The act on part of accused Waseem Ajmal caused a loss of Rs1.27 billion to government exchequer. In this regard, the accused was also found involved in illegal payments of $96,000 in the name of fake exemptions.

According to the details, LWMC initiated tendering process for outsourcing Solid Waste Management Services in Rawalpindi and Murree in 2012.

At the same time, bidders offered very exorbitant rates hence procedure of tendering was halted in February 2013. Lately, re-bidding was initiated for outsourcing of Solid Waste Management Services in Rawalpindi and Murree on 24th June, 2013. NAB Lahore earlier arrested five persons involved in the misappropriation of funds in said project.