Roshan Sindh project case: AC accepts plea bargain of two accused

The Accountability Court hearing multibillion rupees fake bank account case on Monday approved plea bargain between two accused of Roshan Sindh project case and National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

The NAB officials informed Accountability Court Judge Muhammad Bashir that NAB Chairman former Justice Javed Iqbal had accepted the applications filed by two accused including Abdul Sattar, former XEN, and Aslam Pervez Memon, in which both had consented to pay Rs 3 million under the plea bargain.

The court inquired from both the accused whether they are making payment on their own freewill or any one forced them to do so. The accused replied that they are making payment on their own freewill.

The court approved Rs 2.5 million plea bargain of Pervez and Rs 600,000 application of Abdul Sattar. The court after recording statements of both the accused ordered to release them from Adiala Jail.

Earlier, six accused of Roshan Sindh project have shown willingness to deposit Rs 75 million under plea bargain. The accused including Aslam Pervez, Abdur Rasheed Channa, Zafar Enterprises, Aziz Tehseen, Baleedo and Abid Arain have expressed willingness for plea bargain. According to details, the Sindh government on September 22, 2014 approved the first project of Roshan Sindh to install 20,000 solar lights by June 2016 in major municipal and town committees across the province at a cost of Rs 4 billion.

Reportedly, solar streetlights were installed on specific roads of certain cities, while the most of the areas were ignored. Originally, 1,000 solar lights were to be installed in districts Malir and West Karachi, 4,000 in Hyderabad division, 3,500 each in Mirpurkhas and Shaheed Benazirabad, 4,000 in Sukkur and 4,000 in Larkana. This project also turned out to be the costliest of them all, with each of the installed solar bulb costing Rs 0.2 million.

The second project, estimated at Rs 3 billion, was meant to install solar lights in rural areas. This project was approved on October 26, 2016 and was supposed to be completed by June 2018. The third project, with a price tag of Rs 1.5 billion, was advertised as the second phase of the earlier scheme to install solar lights in rural areas. Around Rs 750 million have been spent on the project from the beginning of the current year that will be completed by 2020.