Daily Times

LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has on Friday arrested four officials of the Punjab Land Development Company in Ashiana Iqbal Housing scheme case.

According to NAB, the authorities have arrested Chief Engineer Lahore Development Authority (LDA) Israr Syed, Strategic Policy Unit (SPC) Economic Specialist Bilal Qadwai, PLDC CEO Imtiaz Haider and and Technical and Financial Evaluation member Colonel (retd) Arif Majeed.

Moreover, the probing body interrogated the four arrested officials for a time period of nine hours, while the accused would be presented before an accountability court on Saturday.

Earlier on January 22, the anti-graft body had questioned Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif in the same case.

The chief minister has been accused of illegally meddling in the affairs of the Punjab Land Development Company (PLDC) that caused over Rs 1 billion loss to the national exchequer.

According to the NAB notice, an inquiry against officials of the Punjab Land Development Company (PLDC) and LDA revealed that “prima facie Shahbaz Sharif, being the chief minister Punjab, had ordered certain illegal acts in sheer violation of the laid down procedures for functioning of PLDC due to which the company bore a huge financial loss”.

“Shahbaz had ordered cancellation of contract of Aashiana-e-Iqbal to a successful bidder, leading to award of the contract to other builder, which resulted into a loss of Rs 193 million approximately,” the notice reads.

“He also directed PLDC to assign the project of Aashiana-e-Iqbal to LDA, resulting into award of contracts to M/s Lahore Casa Developers (JV), thus causing a loss of Rs 715 million approximately and ultimately failure of the project,” according to the notice.

It added that the chief minister had also directed PLDC to award consultancy services of Aashiana-e-Iqbal project for Rs 192 million approximately, but its actual cost was Rs 35 million.