The National Assembly’s Standing Committee for Railways has asked the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to take stern action against corrupt individuals responsible for the crisis facing Pakistan Railways. A meeting of the standing committee was held in the Parliament House on Thursday under the chairmanship of Ayaz Sadiq. The meeting was attended by its members from the Ministry of Railways and the high-ups of NAB.
During the meeting, the standing committee asked NAB to take action against corrupt officials, without distinguishing between civilian and military officers.
The committee chairman said that NAB arrests only the civilians and does not act against the men in uniform, adding that such double standards should be eliminated. He further alleged that three retired army generals – General (r) Javed Ashraf Qazi, General (r) Saeed Zafar and General (r) Butt – had been involved in illegal activities at Royal Palm Club. He added that investigations were being carried out against an army brigadier. He said that General (r) Javed Ashraf Qazi, during his stint as Railways’ minister, had imported 69 locomotives along with spare parts from China, adding that 80 percent of those spare parts went out of order by 2009 because they had not been brought into use, resulting in the purchase of more spare parts at a cost 500 times higher than the price of engines. All this caused a loss of Rs 1.8 billion to Pakistan Railways, he said.
The standing committee also praised NAB’s performance in investigating cases of monetary corruption.
Generals have a right to do as they please. Monetary corruption is unstoppable especially when retired Generals are involved. What cannot be cured must be endured.
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