BAHAWALNAGAR: The Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) has booked over a dozen officials of the district headquarters (DHQ) hospital and the district account office, including a senior auditor, three former medical superintendents, two ex-district accounts officers (DAOs), after a probe found them guilty of Rs10 million corruption in vehicles fuel funds.

According to the FIR registered against the suspects by the local ACE office, based on the source report of Circle Officer Kaleem Ahmad filed in 2018, former DHQ hospital MS Amjad Yaseen, in connivance with a firm, Abdullah Traders, made excessive payments for the hospital vehicles’ fuel through bogus bills, causing Rs10m loss to the government exchequer.

The FIR said that after further investigation, on June 15, former accountant of the DHQ hospital Saeed Akhtar, ex-medical superintendents Dr Fayyaz Anwar, Dr Noor Khan Tareen and Dr Riazul Haq, and senior auditor Malik Ghulam Rasool were also found guilty and registration of the case against them was recommended.

It added that more investigations revealed that ex-DAOs Muneer Kalyar and Ghulam Yaseen Bhatti, DHQ hospital officials including Samiullah, Muhammad Khalid, Naeem Mushtaq, Ghaffar Ali, Saleem Akhtar, Muhammad Mushtaq, Rana Saleem, Saeed Akhtar, Mazhar Iqbal, driver Shehzad, transport officers were also involved in the scam.

It said that on the orders of ACE higher authorities, names of ex-MS Dr Amjad Yaseen, proprietor of Abdullah Traders, Maryam Bibi and Rizwan Saeed, were dropped from the inquiry.

Meanwhile, on the orders of Bahawalpur ACE director, a probe has also been initiated into the alleged theft of record of the fuel scam, including bills worth millions. The record was allegedly stolen from the office of the Bahawalnagar ACE deputy director-investigation (DDI) during the Eid holidays.

As per sources, the DDI, without informing the ACE high-ups about the record theft, launched an investigation into the matter and quizzed his office staff, including Assistant Sub-InspectorMalik Tahir, Assistant Superintendent Faisal, Naib Qasid Shafiq and a guard, Iqbal, in this regard.

However, after July 24, when the news of the stolen record got leaked, the DDI informed the higher authorities about the theft, after which the Bahawalpur director initiated a probe into the matter, appointing Assistant Director (Investigation) Adnan Asif Bhutta as inquiry officer (IO).

On being asked, DDI Abdul Ghaffar categorically denied theft of the scam record.

However, the IO, while confirming the incident, told Dawn that during Eid holidays some of the bills, out of total fuel bills worth Rs 8.3 million, were stolen from the record room of the DDI office. He claimed that most of the case record was secure.

Mr Bhutta further said that it was possible the theft of the record was undertaken with the help of an official of the DDI office allegedly on the behest of DHQ officials involved in the scandal.

However, requesting anonymity, some officials of the DDI office alleged that the high-ups were trying to hide their incompetence by blaming the lower staff. They also alleged that the security arrangements for the DDI office were poor as there was only one guard for the purpose. Similarly, they said that no CCTV camera was installed at the DDI office.

Published in Dawn, August 1st, 2021