PESHAWAR: The National Accountability Bureau, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has arrested a man for embezzling Rs340 million allocated under the Housing Uniform Assistance Subsidy project for the rehabilitation of IDPs of Bajaur tribal district.

According to a statement issued here on Friday, under the project the government with the assistance of USAID had paid around Rs2.5 billion in Bajuar as compensation to the IDPs whose houses had been damaged in the military operation against the miscreants.

Under the project, Rs400,000 was paid to each individual whose house had been completely damaged, while Rs160,000 was paid to owners of the partially damaged houses.

During investigation, it was discovered that accused Nawab Khan in connivance with others prepared fake survey forms of ghost and ineligible affected people, got included fake forms in the payment lists already prepared after survey conducted by the tribal district’s administration and got approved payment lists containing such fake forms, causing huge loss of Rs340 million to the exchequer.

The accused had absconded legal proceedings since then and his case was under trial in the accountability court.

He was produced in an accountability court which approved his 14-day physical custody for further interrogation by the NAB. It was stated that Rs110 million had been recovered from other co-accused through plea bargain.

Published in Dawn, May 18th, 2019