LAHORE: The Punjab Anti-Corruption Establishment has registered a case against four senior government officials and a company CEO on charges of malpractices in the Greater Iqbal Park (GIP) Project.

The case was lodged against PHA former director general Mian Shakil, GIP former project director Chaudhry Tahir Sultan, PHA director engineering Irfan Aslam, deputy director engineering Riaz Ahmad and Habib Construction Company CEO Shahid Saleem.

According to inquiry report and the FIR lodged by ACE, loss amounting to Rs381.874m had been caused to the national exchequer in GIP Project. In order to provide financial benefit to ‘blue-eyed’ persons and the respective departments, rate of non-schedule items had been excessively inflated as compared to market rate and PEPRA rules had also been ignored outright.

The corruption on massive scale was disclosed on non-schedule items buying comprising musical dancing fountain, audio-video system for museum, Quaid-i-Azam Hologram software and hardware, national history museum, food court fountains, CCTV cameras, floodlights, write room, infotainment system development, network structure and hardware solution, wood folding benches, soft wheel train, LED lights and walk-through gates.

An official of the ACE said work amounting to Rs1.5b had been undertaken without getting approval in Greater Iqbal Park and the scope of project had been expanded up to four times in order to provide benefit to ‘favourites.’

He said no tender or bid process had been taken into consideration during the process of enhancing the scope of the project.

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2019