ISLAMABAD – The Senate Standing Committee on Commerce on Friday directed the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to advertise the sales of land illegally purchased by the NICL in order to assess their actual value.
Chairing the committee’s meeting, Senator Ilyas Ahmed Bilour rejected the value assessment of properties by FIA, saying the evaluation conducted by the agency appeared to be an attempt to give a clean chit to the suspects.
DG FIA Waseem Ahmed admitted they too were not satisfied with the evaluation and had already given the re-evaluation task for two properties to the National Engineering Services Pakistan (NESPAK).
Senator Haroon Akhtar Khan said that in the absence of benchmarks, proper evaluation of properties was a difficult task. He proposed a litmus test by demanding that the purchased properties should be advertised for sale and it would help determine their actual worth.
The DG FIA informed the committee that the agency had so far recovered Rs 1.83 billion and an amount of Rs 3.5 billion was still in the recovery process.
NICL had purchased four properties, two in Lahore and one each in Karachi and Dubai at exorbitant prices. He said the cancellation of 803 kanals deal in Lahore by the Ministry of Commerce and the freezing of accounts by the National Accountability Board helped recover Rs 1.68 billion.
When Senator Haroon asked whether FIA was conducting money trail, the DG said the money was in the accounts of sellers and they were attempting to recover the money.
FIA official investigating the case, Zafar Qureshi, said FIA had nothing to do with the chief of the Transparency International (TI), Adil Gilani, but his name cropped up during investigation with former NICL chairman Ayaz Niazi.
He said even other arrested members of the NICL board of directors confirmed that former NICL director Qasim Amin Dada said in a board meeting that Adil Gilani had been ready to give a clean chit to the NICL if they signed a memorandum of understanding with TI.
Qureshi said Dada was the most vital missing link and if arrested he would help solve many mysteries related to the case.
