NAB again nabs officer ‘mala fidely’ arrested before

ISLAMABAD: A senior bureaucrat - Waseem Ajmal- who was behind the bars for almost one year in a NAB case before LHC released him on bail prima facie establishing that the Bureau “mala-fidely” proceeded against him, has again been arrested in another case by the anti-graft agency.

The NAB 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.

Official sources close to Waseem Ajmal told The News that the officer has now been arrested in a project whose work was even acknowledged by the World Bank. These sources said fearing that he would be arrested by NAB, the officer a couple of months back had approached the LHC where NAB had stated that it doesn’t need arrest of Waseem Ajmal. The sources said that Ajmal withdrew the application but now NAB has arrested him.

Last year, the officer was arrested in Saaf Pani Company case along with PML-N ex-MPA Raja Qamarul Islam. He remained behind the bars for almost a year but early this year the LHC had accepted his bail application ruling that it was prima facie established that the NAB “mala-fidely” proceeded against two directors of the Punjab Saaf Pani Company (PSPC), Eng Raja Qamarul Islam and Waseem Ajmal.

In that case, too, the NAB alleged the officer of corruption but the LHC held that there was no violation of rules or allegation of corruption, commission or kickback against seven officials of the PSPC, including Waseem Ajmal and Qamarul Islam in awarding the contract for installation of filtration plants in Bahawalpur region.

A two-judge bench comprising Justice Malik Shahzad Ahmad Khan and Justice Mirza Viqas Rauf on January 30 granted bail to all these accused, arrested by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) months back.

“We have noted that there is absolutely no allegation against the petitioners that they received any commission, kickbacks, illegal gratification while awarding contract,” the LHC order said.

“There is nothing on record that a single penny was paid to them or transferred in their accounts or in the accounts of their relatives or friends. Similarly, there is no allegation that any movable or immovable property was transferred in their names or the names of their relatives or friends,” read the judgement. It added that the accused did not commit any illegality in negotiating the price of bid with KSB pumps and its reduction immediately after the opening of the bids.

The LHC noted, “We are unable to notice any material illegality or violation of rules/law on the subject. If for the sake of arguments, it is presumed that there was any procedural irregularity in the exercise of jurisdiction by the petitioners, even then the same does not amount to misuse of authority to constitute any offence under Section 9(a) of the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO).”

The main allegation in Saaf Pani case against the accused was that they reduced the bid price of the contract from Rs1.14 billion to Rs989 million through post-bid negotiations with the KSB Pumps in order to adjust the bid price with engineering cost estimates of Rs995 million, the judgement noted. The KSB Pumps offered that if the number of plants is increased from 84 to 102, it will charge 20 percent less price of all the plants. This offer was placed before the BoDs, and all the directors unanimously accepted this offer and consequently the price of the plants was reduced.

The verdict had also acknowledged that there was no dispute that KSB Pumps was the lowest bidder and its financial bid of Rs1.14 billion immediately after the opening of the bid through post-bid negotiations got reduced to Rs989 million. The engineering cost estimate of the project was admittedly Rs995 million. It was also an admitted fact that under the relevant rules, the accused/Board of Directors (BoDs) of the PSPC were authorised under the rules to award contract at 4.5 percent higher amount than that cited in engineering cost estimate.