PESHAWAR: The National Accountability Bureau Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Tuesday filed a reference of corruption with a local accountability court against former chairman of the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education Dera Ismail Khan Noor Mohammad and three others.

In the reference filed under Section 9 of the National Accountability Ordinance 1999 with the court of judge Ibrahim Khan, the NAB has accused former BISE chairman Noor Mohammad, controller (examination) Lal Baz Khan and contractors Mohammad Bilal and Alauddin Khan of embezzling Rs15.1 million during the printing and purchase of different items for the board.

It claimed that an inquiry had showed that a huge amount of money was embezzled from the head of secrecy funds in the form of ‘excess withdrawals, purchases on exorbitant rates and wasteful expenditure’ by the suspects.

The former BISE chairman already faces the charge of involvement in the illegal purchase of land for BISE DI Khan.

Lately, he secured a pre-arrest bail.

Also, the NAB filed a reference of Rs60.68 million corruption with the court against seven people, including former director general of the Peshawar Development Authority Qazi Laiq. The suspects have been charged with involvement in the illegal allotment of a precious Hayatabad Township plot on lease without fulfilling legal requirements.

NAB alleges Noor Mohammad, three others embezzled Rs15.1m

Other suspects are former PDA director (estate management) Ijaz Afzal Khan, deputy director Mohammad Khan, director (engineering) Ikramullah Khan, lessee Raz Mohammad and contractors Akhtar Hameed and Imdad Khan.

The NAB alleged that the suspected PDA officials were instrumental in giving away a precious five kanals plot to Raz Mohammad first in violation of legal formalities and second at a nominal price for 33 years with the provision of further extension. It added that the illegal plot allotment had cost the kitty dear.

The NAB alleged that the plot was allotted through an untransparent bidding process.

It alleged that only three contractors filed bids due to shortage of time but the committee didn’t consider two of them for being unqualified and accepted the bid of the third, Raz Mohammad, instead of re-advertising as required by the law in that case. The NAB alleged that the two contractors, Akhtar Hameed and Imdad Khan Khalil, had manipulated the bidding for the plot allotment.

It claimed the investigation showed that the call deposits of all bidders were prepared from a single bank account and that too in one day manifesting manipulation of the exercise and therefore, the bid was illegally acquired by Raz Mohammad.

Published in Dawn December 24th , 2014