NAB arrests Pakistan Railways GM, addl GM

Special Operation Wing of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has arrested Pakistan Railways’ GM (Maintenance and Services) Naeem Malik and Additional GM (Mechanical) Ahsan Mahmood.
Both the accused had played a key role in purchase of spare parts worth $15.6 million for 69 Chinese locomotives.
The accused were part of the negotiation committee, Malik being head, who decided to purchase the spare parts at very high prices. Based on the decision of the committee, Pakistan Railways purchased 356 items at five times higher than the actual market price, 256 parts at double the price while 776 such items were purchased that were not required.
The scam surfaced during former President Pervez Musharraf’s regime when 69 locomotives were purchased from China on a suppliers’ credit at an amount of $98 million without any assessment of whether the locomotives were suitable for Pakistani conditions or not. NAB has already summoned and recorded the statements of former top government functionaries including former federal minister for railways Lt General (r) Javed Ashraf Qazi, former Pakistan Railway chairman Lt General (r) Saeeduz Zafar, and Major General (r) Hamid Hasan Butt.
GM Operations Saeed Akhtar has been arrested.