January 09, 2008	Wednesday	Zilhaj 29, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Jan 8: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Tuesday arrested director marketing of a private housing scheme for allegedly involved in Rs3 billion fraud.

The arrest of Mohammad Akhtar was made after the Accountability Court, Rawalpindi cancelled the bail bond of the accused.

The bureau on February 2007 had already arrested Syed Rahat Mahmood, the chief executive of the housing scheme which had allegedly failed to either provide plots to 21,000 applicants or develop the scheme.

The NAB had informed the media when the chief executive of Bankers City was arrested that its management had collected Rs3 billion from the plot seekers. But, surprisingly a fresh press release issued on Tuesday said the total amount collected by the management of Bankers City was Rs2.65 billion.

According to the NAB, director marketing was responsible for marketing, sale and booking of plots.

He along with the chief executive of the housing scheme allegedly released cheques for purchase of land, payment to land suppliers and commission agents and paid them billions of rupees in violation of Statuary Regulation Ordinance (SRO) 954.

The NAB claimed that the management of the housing scheme obtained No Objection Certificate (NoC) for only 152 kanals, but purchased land in 43 villages, mostly located outside the permissible area of the proposed scheme.

It said neither the management of the scheme had conducted any balloting nor the affected plot seekers had been refunded their deposited amount.

On the other hand a source close to the management of Bankers City Housing Scheme claimed that the action of the NAB against the housing scheme was “unjustified”.

The source told Dawn that the action against the scheme was taken to facilitate Defence Housing Authority (DHA) Islamabad as it was interested in getting the land of the Bankers City to expand Defence Housing Scheme.

When contacted, the spokesman of the DHA expressed ignorance about the intention of the DHA to get the land of the Banker City. The spokesman said he was totally unaware of the matter.