LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau chairman retired justice Javed Iqbal has said compensating the housing societies scams victims is the bureau’s top priority.

Addressing the Ferozepur City Housing scam affectees among whom he distributed Rs730 million compensation at the bureau’s provincial headquarters at Thokar Niaz Beg on Wednesday, Justice Iqbal said: “We will not let any one become Double Shah in the future.”

He said private housing societies lured people through ads and some of these even did not acquire land, nor had the NoC of the department concerned. Such housing societies which existed only on paper defrauded innocent people, he added.

The NAB chief said the bureau had been working hard to return the looted money to the housing scams victims. Since 2018 (during the tenure of Justice Iqbal), the NAB had distributed Rs6.72bn among the housing scams victims and in indirect recoveries the affectees had been compensated through payment of Rs5.3bn. The bureau also arrested 215 suspects in such cases.

Justice Iqbal further said the NAB’s conviction rate was 70 per cent. He said NAB had deposited Rs303bn to the exchequer since its inception (2000). Some 1,210 references had been pending in courts.

Published in Dawn, April 18th, 2019