ISLAMABAD, July 14: The Public Account Committee on Friday directed the ministry of labour and manpower to initiate an inquiry against a manager of the Overseas Employment Corporation (OEC) for extracting money from the people seeking jobs abroad.

A meeting of a PAC sub-committee was told on Friday that the OEC had set up a travel agency in Karachi in 1981 with Maj (retd) Arif Hamid as its manager. The agency deprived many people of their hard-earned money in the garb of a job provider. The corruption reached to a level which pushed the travel agency into bankruptcy.

The ministry’s official informed the meeting that Maj (retd) Hamid had been sacked on the charge of extracting money from people on the pretext of sending them abroad.

According to the audit reports, the travel agency was closed in July 1985 because of a loss of Rs1million and that it had sold air tickets for foreign and domestic travel without keeping proper record. Moreover, the OEC had sold air tickets worth Rs9.285 million to travel agencies, foreigners and ministers on credit and the money had not been returned.

The committee asked the OEC to recover the money.

It criticised the ministry for not referring the case to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA). The ministry said that it had informed the PIA about the misappropriation but only verbally.

The committee was told that the Overseas Pakistanis Foundations had purchased three indebted companies, including Kaghan Brick Works. The OPF had given the companies Rs85.564 million to clear debts but failed to recover the money.

The committee asked the OPF to reply in this regard within four weeks.