PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa finance department has asked 14 provincial departments to act against their respective officials, who made plea bargain and voluntary return deals with the National Accountability Bureau in corruption cases.

Now, such officials face dismissal from service and disqualification to hold public offices.

According to the official documents secured by Dawn, the NAB Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has recovered over Rs650 million from 173 provincial government employees, mostly serving, from 2015 to 2016 under voluntary return and plea bargain agreements in various cases of corruption and corrupt practices.

In light of the recovery of the ill-gotten money, the finance department’s budget officer recently wrote to the administrative secretaries of 14 provincial departments to take appropriate action against the officials convicted of corruption in line with Section 15 of the NAB Ordinance 1999.

Rs650m recovered from 173 govt employees under voluntary return, plea bargain deals in two years

As stated in Section 15 (a) of the NAB Ordinance, where an accused is convicted of an offence under Section 9 of this ordinance, he shall forthwith cases to hold public office, if any, held by him and further he shall stand disqualified for a period of 10 years, to be reckoned with from the date he is released after serving the sentence, for seeking or from being elected, chosen, appointed or nominated as a member of or representative of any public body or any statutory or local authority or in service of Pakistan or any province.

“Provided where an accused who has availed the benefit of sub-section B of Section 25 shall be deemed to have committed an offence under this ordinance, and shall forthwith cease to hold public office, if any, held by him and further he shall stand disqualified for 10 years as above.”

Sub-section B states that any person convicted [under Section 9 of this ordinance] shall not be allowed to apply for or be granted or allowed any financial facilities in the form of any loan or advances from any bank or financial Institution in the public sector, for a period of 10 years from the date of conviction.

The official documents show that Raza Ali, brother-in-law of Ghazan Hoti, the brother of former CM Ameer Haider Khan Hoti, paid Rs20 million to the NAB under plea bargain in the weapon scam.

Also, former provincial police chief Malik Naveed Khan is behind bars in the case.

Sadar Afridi paid Rs33 million in a case regarding the illegal transfer of immovable property of the Mardan tehsil municipal administration, while Provincial Housing Authority (PHA) land acquisition collector made the Rs3.5 million payment under voluntary return scheme and PHA director (planning) Rs12.85 million’s under plea bargain agreement.

Also, XEN of the communication and works department Mohammad Ashraf Khan paid Rs3.2 million under plea bargain deal and former MNA and PMC chairman Arbab Saadullah Rs8.4 million under voluntary return scheme.

Public health engineering department executive engineers Amjad Ali, Mohammad Ayub and SDO Amna Waheed voluntarily returned over Rs2.5 million, excise and taxation department director (admin) Kabir Afiridi Rs775,000, ex-DC Bannu Syed Mohsin Shah Rs3.3 million, former TMO Mardan Tanveer Khan Rs827,306, former XEN PHED department Amjad Ali Rs8.4 million, and Mohammad Asif over Rs45.5 million in at least 12 cases.

Under the voluntary return, Usman Khan Jhagra, Arbab Altaf Qadir and Malik Amir Zeb returned over Rs67 million in three corruption cases related to the agriculture, livestock and cooperative department; former secretary Rehmat Ghazi Rs1.9 million and two Peshawar Town III officials Javed Amjad and Bashir Ahmad around half million rupees each in the University Town Club Sports Complex lease case, and PDA deputy director Mian Hidyatullah Rs2.7 million.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2016