ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau on Thursday decided to file seven more corruption references involving former ministers and government officials in different Accountability Courts.

The decision to this effect was taken in the NAB’s Executive Board Meeting (EBM) presided over by the NAB Chairman former Justice Javed Iqbal.

The meeting okayed filing of seven corruption references, launching of six investigations, and three corruption inquiries, a NAB official said.

He said that the meeting had approved closing investigations against Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, speaker Punjab Assembly/former minister Local Government Department, Punjab, and others, owing to absence of evidence as per law. The official said that the meeting decided to file reference against former health minister Balochistan Rahmat Ali and others. The accused persons have allegedly misused their authority and accumulated assets beyond known sources of income, and illegally-awarded contract as well as illegal appointments.

The official said that the EBM okayed another reference against Meer Muhammad Sadiqu, former minister Balochistan.

The accused had allegedly misused his authority and illegally allotted five acre land of All Pakistan Clerk Association in his name, which inflicted losses of Rs280.2 million to the national exchequer.

During the EBM meeting, the official said that the anti-graft body also approved to file a reference against Maqbool Ahmed, former secretary monitoring and development Balochistan.

The accused by misusing his authority had allegedly awarded a contract to his blue-eyed contractor by reducing the reserve cost to Rs21 million from Rs32.15 million, which caused losses of Rs11 million to the exchequer. Similarly, the bureau has also decided to file corruption reference against Nisarullah Khan, former district officer FC Bannu, Abdul Nawaz Khan, former FC officer district Bannu, and others.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020