ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Railways has shared with the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) a detailed report of the Rs2 billion worth Royal Palm Golf Club scam which the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) decided to reopen on Feb 20.

Former senior army officer, including an ex-chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), have been accused of extending undue favours during the award of lease for the gold club.

The army officers are accused of transferring tens of hundreds of acres of prime railway land in Lahore to a Malaysian firm during the regime of Gen Musharraf in 2001 for the development of the golf club at throwaway rates.

The case against ex-army generals has been reopened by NAB after 17 years

PAC could not take up the report due to lack of quorum. Only seven of the 29 PAC members were attending when the minimum number required to start a meeting is eight.

PAC Chairman Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah was also not attending and the meeting was presided over by Syed Naveed Qamar. Those attending waited for other members for about an hour and decided to defer the agenda till the next meeting at about noon.

According to the agenda, the railways ministry was scheduled to brief the PAC on the golf club as well as its projects under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor.

The Pakistan Railways’ report says the golf club in question was established in Lahore in 1927 and in the year 2000, competent authorities decided to venture into the commercial side and in response, received six expressions of interest.

These were from HCCL- Husnain Construction and Union Consulting Services- Pakistan Services Limited, Meinhardt Singapore, Bradenton International Enterprises, Fidelity Investment Bank and Gharibwal Cement Limited.

The companies which submitted bids included Pakistan Services, Maxcorp Consortium and Bradenton International Enterprises. On July 26, 2001, Pakistan Railways, Maxcorp, Husnain Construction and Union Consulting entered into an implementation agreement.

As per the Railways report, Maxcorp was not party in the pre-qualification process and tender documents were not issued to Maxcorp.

A committee of the National Assembly probed the case and concluded that the contract should be terminated and legal proceedings should be initiated against the former DG ISI, the then minister for Railways retired Lt Gen Javed Ashraf Qazi, former Railways chairman retired Lt Gen Saeed us Zafar, former GM retired Maj Gen Hamid Hassan Butt and the then chairman of Railways Khurshid Alam.

The committee recommended that all members of the executive committee as well as the evaluation committee, i.e. secretary Railways, GM operations, GM finance and others be prosecuted.

The matter remained shelved for seven years and on August 10, 2017, Railways constituted a committee which submitted its report on Sept 28, 2017 which upheld the findings of the National Assembly’s committee report.

The Railways report concluded that it has issued termination notices to the lessee and the matter is stuck as the other party has gone into litigation.

Published in Dawn, February 22nd, 2018