ISLAMABAD: Chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Fasih Bukhari on Wednesday told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that the bureau had formed a committee to probe cases which were registered against opponents over political motives.

The committee met under the chairmanship of Nadeem Afzal Gondal. Members of the committee include Begum Yasmeen Rehman, Rukhsana Bangash, Noor Alam Khan, Khawja Asif, Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, Syed Ghulam Mustafa Shah, Hamid Yar Hiraj, Riaz Hussain Pirzada and Afzal Sandhu.

The NAB Chairman said that the committee headed by the NAB Prosecutor General would decide that which cases were made on the basis of political rivalries. However, the NAB has no discretion to dispose of the cases, he added.

Zahid Hamid said that the NAB should hear the cases on merit and decide their authenticity.

The committee also ordered inquiry against the two former NAB chairmen and two generals for taking Liquified Petrolium Gas (LPG) quota illegally and also sought report about inquiry into the illegal privatisation of Pakistan Engineering Council Limited (PECO) to Arif Habib & Co on weekly basis.

It also directed the NAB to investigate against the former NAB Chairmen Lt. Gen. (retd) Khalid Maqbool and Lt. Gen. (retd)    Munir   Hafeez on taking LPG quota.

Khawja Asif said that General (retd) Khalid Maqbool had taken a Rs 2 billion loan from the Bank of Punjab for purchasing LPG, which he never returned.

He said that Gen (retd) Muneer Hafeez, Gen (retd) Saeed Zaffar and Gen (retd) Moeen-ud-Din Haider also took illegal LPG quota.

The committee also sought a report on LPG from the NAB within a month.

Audit officials told the committee that the NAB received Rs 13.4 million donations from Pakistan Steel Mills, PTCL and National Bank of Pakistan for advertisement during the year 2005-06.

The NAB Chairman told the committee that the bureau had received Rs 1.6 billion as its 30 per cent share of the recovery proceeds under Recovery and Reward Rules 2002. However, since 2008 it did not receive a single penny from the government in that regard.

The PAC members said that the Police and the Audit Department also made recoveries but they did not receive any money from them and directed that a uniformed policy should be followed.