ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) approved on Monday two references against officials of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government for their alleged involvement in white collar crimes.

The decision came at the executive board meeting of NAB held here with Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry in the chair.

According to the NAB spokesman, the first reference was approved against Tariq Awan, a former secretary in the Workers Welfare Board (WWB); Abdul Waheed, a former project manager of the WWB; and contractors Muhammad Asghar Awan, Arslan Qureshi, Manzoor Ahmad Ghuri and Naeem Rabani for illegal award of nine contracts for procurement of equipment.

Know more: 35 held for clinging to two govt jobs: NAB

He said that generators, vacuum cleaners, first-aid boxes, fans, fibre glass rooms, interactive boards, stationery, carpets, uniforms, sports items, etc., had been procured through fake and non-registered firms at exorbitant rates of Rs517 million, causing loss to the national exchequer on account of short and substandard supply of equipment for the WWB.

The second reference will be filed against Prof Dr Abdur Rahim Khan, a former chairman of the Board of Intermediate and Secon­dary Education, Dera Ismail Khan; former controller Muhammad Atlas Khan, former acting controller Amanullah Khan and former assistant controller Wajeehuddin Ahmad.

The officials were accused of violating rules and regulations as they received applications from students after the due date with normal fees had passed and in some cases they did so even without receiving any fee.

The NAB official said that answer sheets had been illegally re-checked, fraudulently remarked, award lists had been changed/replaced and tampered by using fluid and overwriting in the result sheets of both SSC and HSSC annual results by the suspects who misused their authority and extended illegal benefit to non-deserving students.

They re-checked papers and changed marks of 2,394 students in 4140 answer sheets. The illegal and corrupt practices caused grave social injustice as they awarded unjustified marks to non-deserving students who in turn deprived the deserving students of their due rights. The accused caused a loss of Rs2.94m to the exchequer, the spokesman said.

In a separate case, the meeting decided to close an inquiry against Najaff Abbas Siyal, a former Land Acquisition Collector of the Lahore Development Authority and others.

The meeting also closed a complaint verification against Allah Wasaya Awan, a former director general, Information Technology, Training & Research, regar­ding accumulation of assets beyond his known and legal sources of income due to lack of incriminating evidence.

Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play