MULTAN: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has summoned more officers of the Punjab government, including planning and development secretary, over alleged irregularities committed in Multan metro bus project.

The officers have been asked to appear before the investigation officer on Monday (today). The officers summoned by NAB from planning and development (P&D) department include present Secretary Iftikhar Ali Sahoo, former chairman of P&D board Irfan Elahi, ex-secretary Arif Anwar Baloch, chief economist Dr Khalid Mushtaq, production sector wing member Dr Naveed Ahmad Cahudhry, social infrastructure members Muhammad Ejaz Hussain and Bushra Awan, industries chief Muhammad Aslam Javed, assistant coordinator-II Muhammad Ali Nazir, former senior transport chief Sohail Akhtar Shahzad and technical chief Khalid Javed, besides ex-commissioner (Multan) Asadullah Khan, operations managers of Habib Bank, Lahore, and Soneri Bank, Karachi. NAB has also summoned officers of Multan Development Authority, including former additional director general Altaf Hussain Sario and DG Rizwan Qadeer.

Sources said former district coordination officer (Multan) Zahid Saleem Gondal will also be summoned next week.

They said Punjab chief minister will also be asked by NAB to explain his position after completion of investigation into conduct of the officers called by the bureau.

Earlier, the NAB had summoned the P&D board former chairman Irfan Elahi, Punjab Metro Bus Authority Managing Director Sibtain Fazal Haleem, Punjab Mass Transit Authority General Manager Aziz Shah, Multan Metro Bus Service Project Director Sabir Khan Sadozai, Osmani Company Private Limited general manager, Multan Development Authority former director general Asadullah Khan (former commissioner), Member Infrastructure Dr Abid Bodla, Member/Chief Technical Khalid Javed, Additional Secretary (Finance) Ashiq Hussain Olakh, Additional Secretary (Technical) Housing, Urban Development and Public Health Engineering Department Shahid Latif, Member Social Infrastructure Bushra Awan, Member Services P&D board Dr Naveed Ahmad Chaudhry, Monitoring and Evaluation DG Dr Sajid Mubeen and Assistant Chief Technical Muhammad Imran.

Two of the officers — P&D board ex-chairman Irfan Elahi and former commissioner, MDA DG (who was also the project director) Asadullah Khan had also appeared before the investigation team earlier.

Social infrastructure member Bushra Awan who did not appear before NAB team earlier has been sent a reminder, asking her to join the investigations.

The sources said although the project had been completed, no approval for it was allegedly sought by the governing body of the MDA, the executing agency.

They said that when the process of land acquisition was underway, former DCO Mr Gondal had allegedly refused to send the case of commercialisation of some properties to the board of revenue. These properties were not located on the roads declared commercial or their owners were not paying the commercialisation fee, they added.

They said on the direction of then commissioner Mr Khan, payments were allegedly made to the owners while dealing these properties as commercial ones instead of residential.

The sources said that as per NAB, the pile integrity test, which was being used worldwide and is a non-destructive pile testing method for assessing the condition of piles to avoid any damage, was not conducted despite being part of PC-I of the project.

NAB Chairman retired Justice Javed Iqbal had on December 14, 2017 ordered an inquiry into alleged irregularities in the project while presiding over his first executive board meeting.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2018