June 20, 2002	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 8, 1423

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MUZAFFARABAD, June 19: AJK Ehtesab Bureau on Wednesday arrested a senior government officer for inflicting losses on the national exchequer in an official procurement involving Rs12.06 million.

AJK Hydro Electric Board Managing Director Mohammad Iqbal Ratyal was arrested from his official residence at around 10:20am.

Sources at the bureau told Dawn that the Central Purchase Committee (CPC) at its meeting on Feb 7, 2000, had approved the purchase of 5,000 power metres from a Lahore-based company. When the company offered to lower the price subject to increase in the number of devices, the committee revised the order up to 25,000 meters, with a condition that the devices posses metallic gears, the sources said.

But Mr Ratyal, the then chief engineer, amended the purchase order, against the specifications laid down by the CPC, after getting kickbacks from the said company, the sources said.

Resultantly, the firm supplied only 8,300 metres for Rs12 million and that too with plastic gears instead of the required metallic gears. The plastic gears, experts say, are vulnerable to climatic conditions and, thus, record less units than consumed.

The corruption came in the lime light when Mr Ratyal was transferred from the electricity department and Sardar Altaf was posted as new chief engineer. And when the government confiscated company’s call deposit, around Rs1 million, for violating the specifications, the firm promised that it would provide the remaining devices with metallic gears.

The sources told Dawn that around 7,000 of the 8,300 metres having plastic gears had been installed in different areas and were continuously causing loss to the exchequer.

Mr Ratyal, the sources said, was held after the complete investigations into the alleged corruption. Warrants were also issued for the representative of the company involved in the deal, they said.

Mr Ratyal, booked under Azad Penal Code, Anti Corruption Act and Misdemeanour Act 1948, has been kept in Thoori sub jail. He will be produced before an Ehtesab court here on Thursday for his remand.