LAHORE: The Anti-Corruption Establishment on Wednesday booked over 10 officials and contractors of the Metropolitan Corporation Lahore (MCL) in a mega corruption scam amounting to over Rs1 billion.

According to the ACE, the MCL officers in collaboration with the contractors spent Rs520 million on cattle markets in 2021 and in 2022 the cost of setting up cattle markets swelled to Rs1.7bn. “Later, the MCL employees colluded with the contractors and made payments of millions of rupees by creating fake records and bills,” it said.

The ACE filed an FIR against MCL employees - Nadeem Tahir, Sidra Zafar, Qaiser Hanif, Faisal, Yusuf Sindhu and Muhammad Zubair – and contractors Malik Rashid, Malik Arshad, Zohaib, Malik Tanveer, Malik Shahbaz Zeeshan and others with no arrest.

Meanwhile, the ACE Faisalabad registered a case against former chairman Faisalabad Development Authority Mian Waris Aziz and director general Zahid Ikram and other officers involved in the mega corruption scandal in the approval of Faisalabad Master Plan.

Former DG FDA Zahid Ikram and ex-chairman Mian Waris Aziz caused billions of rupees loss to the national exchequer and also took millions of rupees bribe to show the agricultural area to brown, and the brown area to commercial, it said and added the master plan was altered by taking bribes from people.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2023