LAHORE: In a major development in Ashiana Housing scandal, National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Friday arrested brothers of Paragon city Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Nadeem Zia.
The anti-graft watchdog has arrested Muneer Zia and Umar Zia after the investigation in the land scam was extended, local media reported.
Umar Zia is a member of the Paragon’s board of directors, while Munir Zia is a partner of Shahid Shafiq, who is CEO of Bismillah Engineering Services, allegedly involved in taking the contract of Ashiana Housing Scheme on fake documents inflicting damage on national exchequer.
The accountability watchdog had launched an investigation against the officials of the Punjab Land Development Company (PLDC), higher-ups of Lahore Casa Developers and officers of the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) after the government cancelled the award of the Ashiana-e-Iqbal housing scheme contract to the successful bidder M/S Chaudhry Latif and Sons.
The award was then given to M/S Lahore Casa Developers (JV) which is a proxy group of M/S Paragon City (Pvt) Limited (believed to be developed by Railways Minister Saad Rafique) hence causing a loss of millions of rupees to the exchequer, according to the graft-buster.
Shafiq’s company was part of the joint venture Lahore Casa Developers that NAB has said was ineligible to receive the contract worth Rs14 billion and he was arrested on the identification of Ahad Cheema.
On Feb 21, the NAB has arrested former director-general of LDA Ahad Cheema following the charges of illegally allotting 32 kanal land in Ashiana Housing Scheme.
Ahad Cheema, who is still in custody, was then the chief executive officer of the Punjab Thermal Power Ltd when he was arrested under NAB ordinance’s schedule-2 as the former LDA boss did not appear before it when summoned on January 16.
A NAB spokesperson stated on Sunday that, in 2015, former LDA director general Ahad Cheema, who is now in NAB custody, had misused his authority with criminal intent to award a contract to Bismillah Engineering —a C-4 company, ineligible for the contract.
Bismillah Engineering was only eligible to receive contracts up to 150 million rupees and Cheema caused a loss of 455 million rupees to the national exchequer, said the official.
