KOHAT: Tehsil municipal officer Mohammad Shoaib was granted bail before arrest in NAB cases concerning illegal appointments and corruption on Thursday.

The TMO has been under investigation by NAB for several years in cases of alleged illegal appointment of 87 employees and accumulating wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income.

The NAB has also been investigating the selection board and other few officials of TMA, Kohat, who were allegedly involved in the illegal appointments. The court, which granted him bail, asked the NAB to present all record of the cases on the next date of hearing.

When contacted, Mr Shoaib told this scribe that NAB had conducted numerous inquiries against him and now he had urged the court to ask it to conduct final fact-finding investigation and close down the cases. He secured the bail from the Peshawar High Court. He said that all the appointments had been made with the approval of the provincial local government.

Sources claimed that he had appointed several ghost employees and was receiving salaries on their behalf for the past several years with the collusion of some other officials.

PROJECTS FOR FR: Political agent of Frontier Region of Kohat, Khalid Ilyas, approved eight development projects worth Rs15.4 million for the region on Thursday.

Chairing a meeting at his office, Mr Ilyas, who is also the deputy commissioner of Kohat, asked assistant political agent Tariqullah to ensure timely release of the funds by the Fata Secretariat and monitor the projects on weekly basis.

The projects approved included those in the communication, education, health and water sectors. He asked other relevant departments to ascertain that the projects were completed according to the plan and design.

Mr Ilyas also ordered regular liaison between the FR departments, development officer and the Fata Secretariat for identifying more projects of public welfare. He said that deprivations of the tribal people resulting from the long war should be removed at all costs.

Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2017