ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Monday decided to hold an enquiry against a former president of the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) for recruiting his blue-eyed on luxury salary packages and for recruitment of officials on a political basis.
According to the documents received by Online, NBP former president Syed Iqbal Ahmed Ashraf had recruited Sindh former IG Azhar Ali Farooqi on a monthly salary package of Rs400,000, Mubashar Maqbool against a package of Rs1.2 million and Khaliquz Zaman, a retired officer of the FIA against Rs250,000 per month. Zaman was allegedly assigned to keep away the FIA from the apprehension of individuals involved in corruption cases.
The documents reveal further that the NBP former president had hired the services of a private company, Murshid Private Limited for the recruitment of these officers and maintained that this private company had advertised the vacant posts of these officers, but did not mention NBP and showed dishonesty.
Besides these officers, Azfar Jamal, A Hassan, Asim Akhter, Umer Azeem, Dawood Pota, Kashif Teheem, and Owais Asad were also recruited on behalf of this private company. Approximately 50 percent of their salaries were to be transferred in the bank account of the company.
It is worth mentioning here that the enquiry against the NBP former president was initiated on the demand of Transparency International. The Transparency International had written a letter to the ministry of finance, Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairman Syed Khurshid Ahmed Shah and FIA director general and wrote about the illegal recruitments in NBP.
While former chairman NAB Chaudhry Qamaruz Zaman had stayed silent over the matter, the current NAB Chairman Justice (r) Javed Iqbal decided to hold the enquiry while taking notice of the letter. The preliminary report is being edited in this regard.
It may be noted that another NBP former president Ali Raza accused of corruption worth Rs20 billion is now in prison.
