ISLAMABAD: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has failed to recover Rs588 million from 22 Patwari’s (revenue officials) despite a passage of three years.
Documents available with Pakistan Today indicate that 428 Patwari’s (revenue officials) promised to return Rs1.20 billion, earned through illegal means, under the NAB’s voluntarily return scheme. However, from 2008 to 2015, they only submitted approximately half of the amount (Rs 611 million) to NAB.
These corrupt revenue officials are accused of various wrongdoings including using substandard material in the construction of retaining walls of Bannu Khurram Bridge, illicit cutting of timber by falsely registering with the Joint Forest Management Committee (JFMC) based on fake data, corruption in Contractor of Works and Services Department in Dera Ismail Khan, illegal sale of ghee from Utlity Store Corporation in open market, embezzlement of funds allocated for purification of water in Balochistan, corruption in the projects of Mansehra Development Authority (MDA), misappropriation in Abyana and misappropriation and embezzlement in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
Most of the corrupt revenue officials who had agreed to return the money during the previous government’s tenure belong to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK).
Names of some of these individuals are Muhammad Arshad, Muhammad Saeed, Muhammad Mushtaq, Mazhar Hussain Shah, Sobia Batool Malik, Jehanzeb, Aziz ur Rehman, Muhammad Ghawar, Rahim Dad, Mohbat Khan, Akbar Said, Muhammad Arshad, Fazal ur Rehman, Muhammad Imad Ali, Naseer Ahmad, Ghazala Tasneem, Muhammad Asif, Navid Qadir, Zaki Ullah, Sharif Ullah, Muhammad Yaqoob and Alamzeb.
Sources told this scribe that NAB did not collect the aforementioned amount as the plea bargain matter is in the apex court for last two years.
The apex court had raised objections on the plea bargain and had observed that a civil servant, after entering into the voluntarily return scheme, continues his corrupt practices while sitting in his office.
Under the voluntary return scheme, 1400 people of different departments contacted NAB to return illegally earned money.
Documents revealed that NAB still has to collect Rs3.76 billion from one hundred and seventy corrupt government servants of different departments.
The apex court took notice of voluntarily return scheme in 2016 and had expressed its annoyance.
The Supreme Court (SC) directed the Establishment Division secretary and provincial chief secretaries to ensure departmental action against government employees who benefited from the NAB voluntary return scheme.
Section 25 (a) of the National Accountability Ordinance of 1999 empowered the NAB chairman to accept the offer of voluntary return. However, the incumbent government in its reply to the court opposed the power granted to NAB chairman under the existing law to release an accused following the voluntary return of ill-gotten money.
The spokesperson of NAB informed that the issue of voluntarily return is sub judice in the court of law and SC has stopped NAB for continuing the scheme till further orders.