HYDERABAD: National Accountability Court Judge Aijaz Ali Khaskheli on Saturday sentenced two officers of the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) to seven years rigorous imprisonment (RI) and imposed a fine of Rs9.66 million on them in a graft case. Two separate references were filed by the National Accountability Bureau against Imdad Ali Sahito and Mohammad Ali Otho.

Pronouncing his verdict, the judge said that both the convicts should undergo a seven-year RI and pay an equal amount as fine equivalent to the amount they had misappropriated. In case of default they would have to undergo another one-year imprisonment, the verdict said.

The references against the two officers were filed under Section 10 of the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999.

They were also declared disqualified for holding a public office for a period of 10 years under Section 15 of the ordinance from the day of their release after serving out the jail term.

In one reference (3/10), Imdad Ali Sahito was accused of having misappropriated an amount of Rs2.7 million and in the second (5/10), along with his accomplice Mohammed Ali Otho, another amount of over Rs8.297 million during his service. He was posted at the NBP Dadu branch.

Both the officers faced allegations of misuse of authority and criminal breach of trust by not depositing actual amounts on different dates in the branch. In the first reference, it was stated that out of the Rs8.2 million, Sahito had settled an amount of Rs1.35 million and vis-a-vis the misappropriation of Rs2.7 million, he did not settle any amount.

In the second reference, Sahito along with Otho was found guilty of misappropriating Rs1.671 million though he later settled Rs110,000.

Originally the second reference was filed in Karachi against three suspects but was later transferred to the Hyderabad NAB court. The third suspect, Manzoor Hussain Shahani, was acquitted.

THATTA: A NAB team carried out a raid on the Thatta district health office and Makli civil hospital on Saturday and seized the records relating to a trauma centre, a thalassaemia unit and a number of welfare schemes executed with a British oil company’s funds after the 2010 super flood. The construction work on the two facilities was abandoned half-way. The team also inquired about seven ‘missing’ ambulances out of the 10 provided by an international donor agency to the district health office.

An investigation into construction of the Thatta-Ghorabari and Thatta-Jhimpir roads, execution of a water supply scheme and other projects was also conducted by the team.

The three-member team also visited the partially-built buildings of the trauma centre on Thatta-Hyderabad highway and the thalassaemia unit next to the Makli Civil Hospital.

The team said it had undertaken a probe into 15 major schemes meant for the district and was interrogating officials of 17 departments.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2015

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