MULTAN: Main accused in the Wapda Employees Cooperative Housing Society (WECHS) scam Saeed Ahmed Khan has reportedly applied for plea bargain to the National Accountability Bureau.

Mr Khan is the former secretary of the society and is imprisoned in the District Jail here.

According to the NAB sources, Mr Khan had confessed to getting kickbacks/commissions from investors in return for land provided by them (the investors) for phase III of the society. He claimed sharing the commission with members of the management committee who approved illegal commercial plots. Sources said the investigation team had unearthed unnamed properties of accused Saeed Khan worth Rs300 million in different cities of the country. They said NAB was yet to assess the size of the embezzlement.

Sources said the business of legalizing illegal commercial plots was so lucrative that the management committee issued 3,344 files (of commercial plots), apart from 12,000 residential plot files despite the fact that the society had only 6000 kanal land in possession whereas it needed 11000 kanal according to the number of files it issued. They said the ratio of illegal commercial plots was so high that there would be one shop after every three houses in phase III.

They said that so far two accused investors and four MC members had surrendered their illegal gains worth Rs120 million only.

They said according to the NAB plea bargain law, an accused is liable to pay 15 per cent additional fine of the total embezzled money. In addition to this, If the accused is a government employee, he immediately loses his job and if he is a non-government person or politician, he is barred from contesting elections for next 10 years.

They said that to favour some influential accused the NAB authorities had showed minimum embezzlement.

They said that former Chief Executive Officer of Multan Electric and Power Company Muzaffar Ali Abbasi, is one of the main accused in the case. According to NAB, Mr Abbasi, in his capacity, chaired the management committee meeting held on Aug 23, 2015, and in connivance of other accused illegally approved the allotment of commercial/residential plots in violation of society bylaws.

Sources said there was no mentioning of the role of the concerned staff of the Multan Development Authority, cooperatives department and revenue department as without their help, embezzlement was not possible.

NAB claimed that during inquiry and inspection of the record, it was revealed that Mr Khan was involved in major financial irregularities while running the affairs of the society, particularly in connection with Phase III and the extension of Phase I, besides the illegal allotment of commercial plots, illegal sale and purchase of land, criminal violation of the approved laws and regulations.

In its interim reference submitted in the NAB court on June 21, the NAB authorities had identified 13 accused including the former Mepco CEO Muzaffar Ali Abbasi, also the former president of the WECHS, society’s former secretary and main accused Saeed Ahmed Khan, its former vice president Shafqat Asghar Tahir and members of the management committee including Iqbal Husain, Ziaur Rehman, Kh Habibur Rehman, Muhammad Khalid, Kashif Mumtaz, Mirza Saleem Baig, Muhammad Yousaf Wahla, Muhammad Arif, Syed Razaul Kabir and Maqbool Ahmed.

Published in Dawn, September 2nd, 2016