Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has prepared another list of 138 bureaucrats and politicians allegedly involved in corruption, after initial investigations, sources in the corruption watchdog told Daily Times.

“There are six to seven former and incumbent federal and provincial ministers and a big number of bureaucrats on our list because there are allegations of corruption against them. We are completing our homework on the basis of evidence available to us,” a NAB official said.

The sources said that the people on the new accountability list abused their powers for personal gains and committed corruption in public welfare projects. Due to this, they said, the NAB was going to take action against them. Important decisions would be taken at the next meeting of the NAB executive board, the sources said.

The sources said that the NAB expanded the scope of its investigations into the corruption charges against bureaucrats after the arrest of Balochistan Finance Secretary Mushtaq Raisani and Foreign Office Director Shafqat Cheema. They said that bank accounts of the officials on the NAB list could be checked. In this regard, they said, services of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) had been sought.

The sources said that some officers had assets beyond their income and they had more than one bank accounts. They said that the SBP would provide the NAB a list of suspicious accounts of officials every month and the bureau would start investigations into these accounts.

“We got important leads against officials of grade 17 to 22 belonging to federal and provincial services and we are hopeful that we will be able to take a decision on them in the next few days,” the sources in the NAB said.

The sources said that Cheema was arrested on the complaint of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He gave the investigators names of many of his accomplices. There was a gang and the NAB was trying to break into it. Raisani also gave the investigators the names of many of his accomplices, the sources said.