MUZAFFARGARH: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) could not recover the embezzled amount from the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) and district accounts officials here in Muzaffargarh despite the passage of two years.

Of the embezzled money of Rs445 million, NAB could retrieve Rs9.5 million from accounts officials and Rs65 millions from NBP officials.

Dawn learnt the officials embezzled the money from pensioners’ funds. When the scam was reported, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrested six NBP officials and later handed them over to NAB. Later, reports of a plea bargain with NBP and accounts officials were reported.

An NBP official told Dawn had the FIA worked on the case, all embezzled amount would have been recovered.

Sources said six NBP officials were suspended from service, and of them three were arrested by NAB. The bank sacked three people from job, whereas the accounts department suspended Mumtaz Qaisrani, then district accounts officer, but he was never arrested.

District Accounts Officer Anwar Chishti said he was complainant in the case. NAB called him for investigation.

Sources said both NBP and accounts department parties were busy influencing the corruption watchdog to bury the scam, which hit 10,000 pensioners. The bank is to disburse Rs100 million to 10,000 pensioners but transactions by the accounts office and the NBP were of Rs188 million every month. Accounts officials did not check the lists of pensions.

District accounts offices work manually where pensioners are issued pension through old manual letters. Recently, officials started issuing computerised letter, but more than half of the correspondence is still manual.

An NBP official said the NAB had taken over land and plots of the arrested bank officials.

Published in Dawn, November 15th, 2018