PESHAWAR: The National Accountability Bureau has summoned Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s son-in-law Fayaz Ali on Jan 28 as part of an ongoing inquiry into his alleged illegal assets.

The NAB Khyber Pakhtunkhwa issued a ‘call-up notice’ to Fayaz Ali, who is also the son of JUI-F central leader Haji Ghulam Ali, asking him to appear before a combined investigation team (CIT) at the bureau’s regional office in Peshawar to record his statement about assets.

The bureau warned that if Fayaz Ali failed to comply with the notice, penal action would be taken against him under the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO), 1999.

The notice said the competent authority had taken cognisance of an offence committed by Maulana Fazlur Rehman and others under the provisions of the NAO.

According to it, there is an inquiry against Maulana Fazlur Rehman, a former MNA, regarding corruption and corrupt practices and accumulation of assets beyond known sources of income.

JUI-F chief’s brother also called over ‘unlawful’ absorption in PMS cadre

Haji Ghulam Ali, a former senator, told reporters that his son hadn’t received any NAB notice.

He said in 2001, he was also arrested and charged in a fake case by the NAB but the court acquitted him.

The JUI-F leader said several of his family members were also named in corruption cases but they, too, were acquitted.

FAZL’S BROTHER: The NAB Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has also summoned Mr Fazl’s brother Ziaur Rehman, an officer of the provincial government, regarding an ongoing inquiry into his alleged illegal absorption in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Provincial Management Service (PMS) cadre over a decade ago.

A call-up notice was issued to him asking him to appear before the investigation team on Jan 26.

The bureau has also summoned in the same inquiry a former chief secretary, Sahibzada Riaz Noor, former secretary (establishment) Sahib Jan and former secretary to the provincial governor Ahmad Hanif Orakzai. They have been asked to appear before the investigation team on Jan 27 and 28.

The NAB claims to have learned in an ongoing inquiry that Ziaur Rehman, a former commissioner of the Afghan Commissionerate, was illegally absorbed or inducted in PMS cadre in 2007 against the prescribed rules during the then Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal government led by Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani of the JUI-F.

The NAB KP is already looking into different issues related to Mr Ziaur Rehman, including his assets.

Mr Rehman is an officer of the KP Provincial Management Service in BPS-19.

A relevant official told Dawn that under the established rules, appointment to the PMS cadre could only be done after one passed the provincial competitive examination.

In 2007, the then provincial governor, retired Lt-Gen Ali Mohammad Jan Aurakzai, had sanctioned a summary forwarded to him by the then chief minister, Akram Durrani, requesting the inclusion of Mr Rehman into the provincial civil service as a section officer under Section 23 of the KP Civil Servant Act, 1973.

Absorption of Mr Rehman, a former employee of the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited, had raised many eyebrows as the inclusion of a federal government employee in the provincial civil service was not possible following the introduction of the Provincial Management Service Rules, 2007, which had abolished the then secretariat and executive groups of the provincial civil service.

An official said the relevant department had opposed his absorption on the ground that vacancies in BPS-17 in the newly-framed Provincial Management Service Rules, 2007, were filled through fresh recruitment by the Provincial Public Service Commission, promotions and appointment of serving employees with post-graduation degree and the minimum five years’ service.

The department had insisted that the newly-framed services rules did not offer such absorption of any federal government employee.

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2021