NAB arrests Midas CEO after court rejects bail plea in Rs 5.76b scam

–SC bench rejects pre-arrest bail application moved by former Sindh information minister Sharjeel Memon 

KARACHI: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) arrested Inam Akbar, chief executive officer of Midas Advertising, outside the Supreme Court after the court rejected his bail on Tuesday.

Inam Akbar is one of the accused in a corruption case of Rs5.76 billion pertaining to illegal awarding of government advertising contracts at exorbitant rates.

The three-judge bench headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa also rejected the pre-arrest bail application of Sindh’s former information minister and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Sharjeel Memon in the same case. While the bench observed that Memon has already been arrested, it stated, however, that he can apply for after-arrest bail in the Sindh High Court (SHC).

On November 25, the PPP leader had filed an appeal in the apex court, challenging SHC’s decision to reject his bail in a reference pertaining to the award of advertisements at ‘exorbitant rates’ through abuse of his power.

In his appeal, Memon had said that he should be granted bail since the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) does not have any evidence against him, adding that his arrest was in contradiction with accountability laws.

The Supreme Court also rejected the bail application of a director of the Sindh government.

A team from NAB had taken Memon into custody on October 23 after the SHC had rejected his bail plea in a corruption case. Following the rejection of his bail plea, Memon had holed up for hours in a courtroom to avoid arrest as his team explored their options, but could not stave off the inevitable for long.

In a previous hearing of the case, NAB had said that it investigated corruption and corrupt practices in the award of advertisements against the law and at exorbitant rates to TV channels and FM radio stations for various awareness campaigns between July 2013 and June 2015. It said it had found that the accused acted with the connivance of each other, resulting in losses to the national exchequer.

Some advertising companies, close to the minister, were given advertisements without inviting tenders which is a prerequisite. All official guidelines as well as the official per minute rates for both television (TV) and radio ads were ignored in the process.

Sharjeel, by overstepping his boundaries, also approved a media plan proposed by advertising agencies without even investigating it first. Later, the former minister with the help of Information Secretary Zulfikar Ali Shalwani and other officials used back-dated documents to legalise the approval.

The investigation also revealed that the bills that were actually issued from the TV and radio channels were kept hidden by the advertising agencies in question, and exuberantly priced bills were issued to the information ministry in their place.

The NAB references named 17 people, of which the interim bail applications of 14 were cancelled on Tuesday, with prompt arrest orders for those present in court.

Previously, Midas Advertising’s Inam Akbar and former information director Yousuf Kaboro could not be arrested as they did not appear for the hearing.