PESHAWAR: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa arrested 145 people, including former provincial ministers and serving and retired officers on charges of corruption in 2015.
As per the NAB Khyber Pakhtunkhwa record, references were filed against 45 people out of the 145 who were arrested. It recovered about Rs2.48 billion from the corrupt people through Voluntary Return and Plea Bargain.
Two former provincial ministers were among those arrested. The NAB filed a reference of Rs355.2 million in the accountability court against former provincial minister Nawabzada Mehmood Zeb of the Pakistan People’s Party’s and nine government officials in the same case.
The nine officials arrested in the scam were secretary Technical Education and Minerals, Shah Wali Khan, the then additional secretary of the department, Asmatullah Khan Gandapur, who later served as commissioner for Bannu division, section officer Farhad Ali, deputy director of the department, Khan Badshah, geologist at the Directorate of Mines and Minerals, Nauroz Khan, senior inspector of mines presently serving as commissioner mines, Ziarat Khan, the then director licensing of minerals department, Shakirullah, assistant director (litigation) of mineral department, Pervaiz Khan, and assistant director, Ehtishamul Mulk.
The NAB also arrested the former provincial minister for revenue Syed Murid Kazim along with three officials for their alleged involvement in illegal transfer of valuable state land measuring 1,976 kanal in Dera Ismail Khan to the Naval Families Rehabilitation Organisation (NFRO) in 2010.
One of NAB’s big catch was Syed Masoom Shah, who was special assistant to chief minister Ameer Haider Hoti of Awami National Party from 2008-2013, He was arrested on the charges of corruption and accumulation of assets beyond his known sources of income.
The NAB also arrested the Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan Vice Chancellor Dr Ihsan Ali, former vice-chancellor of Hazara University Dr Syed Sakhawat Shah, Dr Muhammad Aziz Khan who is Chairman of National Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) College of Medicine Abbottabad and Prof Humayun Zia, former chairman Higher Education Regulatory Authority (HERA).
The serving Additional Secretary Planning and Development Dr Amber Ali (BPS-19), serving Director General Independent Monitoring Unit Zulfiqar Khan and Deputy Director Audit Muhammad Aslam Rafique allegedly involved in the misuse of authority and embezzlement of funds were also arrested.
An official of the NAB told The News that they were pursuing inquiries against a number of officials, former ministers and other and some of them will be nabbed soon.
