In accordance with Supreme Court of Pakistan orders, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has launched inquiries and investigation into the crucial cases of corruption in Pakistan Railways and missing ISAF containers’ scam, involving colossal loss of duties and taxes worth billions of rupees.
It also initiated a probe into the corruption and misuse of authority in OGRA following the appointment of its previous chairman.
An official handout said the proceedings in all these issues had been initiated under the provisions of National Accountability Ordinance 1999 and significant progress had been made on some important aspects, including recoveries in Pakistan Railways.
In the scrap case, Railway officials and contractor were under custody of NAB, of which the contractor had agreed to voluntary return of Rs 47 million as the difference for the scrap lifted so far from Railways and another Rs 240 million as the difference in addition to the amount already agreed for the scrap to be uplifted by him.
“Negotiations are going on with Royal Palm Golf Club and its management has agreed to pay a substantial amount as increase to railways authorities annually. Inquiry about the purchase of spares for Chinese locomotives is at the final stage, which in fact was the major cause for halting railways operations,” the statement said.
It said NAB was also conducting important matters of Bank of Punjab per the directives of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. In this case NAB had so far recovered more than Rs 5 billion from the accused, out of the defrauded amount of Rs 9 billion and the process of further recovery was underway.
“Per the judgment of the apex court about the revival of NRO cases, all of the terminated cases were revived and are being pursued in accordance with law. In this respect, more than 100 weekly progress reports have been submitted on revived NRO cases before the Supreme Court of Pakistan,” the statement added.
Matters pertaining to grievances of the general public and referred by the court for redressal are being given due priority and compliance reports are being regularly submitted to the apex court.
“This shows the commitment of the bureau towards its obligations on matters particularly entrusted by the Supreme Court of Pakistan,” said the statement.
The NAB said it was conducting its proceedings on the complaints received form various sources and matters referred by superior courts.
Matters related to high-level corruption and particularly referred by the Supreme Court of Pakistan were being given high priority, it added.
