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Thursday March 28, 2024

Sugar, wheat scam: NAB gives green light for probe

By Asim Yasin
April 22, 2020

ISLAMABAD: The Executive Board of the National Accountability Bureau Tuesday gave green light to a comprehensive investigation into the mega scam of wheat and sugar, including billion of rupees looting, price hike, smuggling and subsidy on sugar, as per law.

The board met with Chairman Justice (R) Javed Iqbal in the chair. The federal government earlier this month had made public reports of a high-level inquiry into the sugar and wheat crises, while the forensic report would be submitted to the prime minister on April 25.

The board closed an inquiry against ex-attorney general Justice (R) Malik Abdul Qayyum and others for want of evidence. The board authorized conducting two inquiries against the officers/officials of Capital Development Authority (CDA), management of River Garden Housing Society and inquiries into mega corruption cases in the Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL).

The board approved sending a complaint verification against the management of International Islamic University and others to the relevant department as per law.

It also approved closing inquiries against officers/officials of Privatization Commission of Pakistan, Professor Dr Ikramullah Khan, Head of Dermatology, PIMS, Islamabad and others, managing committee of Interior Employees CooperativeHousing Society, Raja Ali Akbar and others owing to lack of evidence.

Speaking on the occasion, Justice Javed Iqbal said the NAB always believed in concentrating on merits of case sans caring about the face behind the case and taking it to the logical conclusion.

He said the NAB’s priority was to eradicate corruption, recover the looted amount from the plunderers and take mega corruption white-collar cases to the logical conclusion, besides returning the people’s hard-earned money looted by fake/illegal housing cooperative societies.

He said the NAB had filed 610 corruption references with various accountability courts during the last two years under the present management. “The NAB has directly or indirectly recovered record Rs178 billion from corrupt elements in last two years and deposited into national exchequer,” he said. He said the performance of NAB had already been acknowledged by reputed international organizations including the World Economic Forum.

“Right now 1,275 corruption references having accumulated value of Rs943 billion were under trial in various accountability courts,” he said.

He urged people and the regulator to play their role to check the mushroom growth of illegal housing societies. He asked the print and electronic media to confirm authenticity, including availability of land, approval of layout plan and NOC from relevant regulator, of a housing society before printing/broadcasting the advertisement campaign.

“This is essential, as some housing societies exist only on paper and they do not have approval from the relevant regulator. Despite that, they succeed in looting people due to their attractive advertisements,” he said.