ISLAMABAD: Minister for Communications and Postal Services Murad Saeed on Thursday said he would present 10 years’ record of the National Highway Authority (NHA) to the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) recently announced by Prime Minister Imran Khan to ascertain how Rs24,000 billion in foreign loans were utilised in these years.

“My ministry will be the first one to present before the commission the record of corruption, kickbacks and commission and misuse of foreign loans by two successive governments of PML-N and the PPP from the NHA,” the minister told a press conference.

“We will inform the commission how foreign loans were acquired, which of the blue-eyed construction firms benefited and how the money of kickbacks and commission was transferred to fake bank accounts,” he added.

Mr Saeed claimed that over Rs50 billion was embezzled only in one project — the Multan-Sukkur Motor-way (M-8) — and the case had already been sent to the National Accounta­bility Bureau (NAB).

He said that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for construction of M-8 had been signed in 2013 with a foreign firm and bids for the project had been called in 2015.

Mr Saeed claimed that he had conducted an internal audit in the NHA and after that he got to know that the initial cost of the M-8 project was Rs242bn but it was revised upward to Rs300bn.

The minister claimed that leaders of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz had obtained heavy kickbacks and commissions in the mega road projects allegedly through their front man Javed Sadiq.

Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2019