June 26, 2002	Wednesday	Rabi-us-Sani 14, 1423

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PESHAWAR, June 25: Islamabad did not pay heed to  the provincial governments’ requests to pay them the funds recovered by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) through plea bargains from their area, according to official sources.

Provinces, the sources said, had moved the federal government to pay them the amount of funds which the NAB had recovered from those ‘corrupt elements’ who opted to get released through plea bargains.

They had taken the stand that they should be given the money back after the funds recovered through plea bargains. However, the sources added, the federal authorities did not pay much attention to the provincial governments’ requests.

The chairman of the NAB, Lt Gen Munir Hafeez during his visit to the Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry confirmed that the funds requested by the provincial governments had not been transferred to them.

The money recovered so far, the NAB chairman said, had been deposited with the finance division, Islamabad, who would make use of the same by making budgetary allocations to the provinces.

Apart from NWFP, Balochistan and Punjab had also asked for surrendering the amount to them. None of them had yet got their requests materialized, said the sources. However, the funds, out of the total recovered  money, pertaining to the Employees Old-age Benefit Institution and OGDC had been placed with the same two organizations.

“EOBI has been provided with the funds for these pertained to the labourers,” the NAB chairman said.

The NAB, according to its chairman, has so far recovered a total of Rs 100 billion, from bureaucrats, bankers and  politicians.