LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has arrested a senior bureaucrat in Rs1 billion scam.

“The NAB on Tuesday arrested Lahore Waste Management Company’s former managing director Waseem Ajmal on the charges of embezzling over Rs1bn in this (LWMC) project,” a NAB spokesperson said.

According to the NAB, the contract for preparation of consultancy services was awarded to the LWMC by the city district government, Rawalpindi in 2012. As per terms of reference of the contract, the consultants were supposed to prepare the cost estimates and pre-qualification criteria. The bidding documents included draft agreements for the outsourcing of the Solid Waste Management (SWM) services whereas, the core team of the collective consultancy team comprised the members who were associated with preparation of cost estimates, bidding documents etc -- LWMC MD Waseem Ajmal, CFO Rana Muhammad Arif, GM Procurement retired Col Muhammad Tahir and GM Legal Operations Khalid Majeed.

It said being former MD and team leader of the LWMC, Waseem Ajmal held a meeting on April 26, 2014, in which he intentionally concealed the details from the other board members of meeting, it said.

“The suspect intentionally concealed the fact that the initial cost estimate regarding project’s labour cost of M/s Albirak which was already included in the initial cost estimates was got re-issued during bidding process. The act on part of Waseem Ajmal caused a loss of Rs1.27bn to the exchequer.”

The NAB said the suspect was also found involved in illegal payments of $96,000 in the name of fake exemptions. “The LWMC initiated tendering process for outsourcing of Solid Waste Management Services in Rawalpindi and Murree in 2012. The bidders offered very exorbitant rates hence procedure of tendering was halted in Feb 2013. Of late re-bidding was initiated for outsourcing of Solid Waste Management Services in Rawalpindi and Murree on 24th June 2013.”

The NAB Lahore has so far arrested five suspects in this case. Mr Ajmal will be presented before the accountability court on Wednesday for physical remand.

Published in Dawn, November 20th, 2019