ISLAMABAD: A special court of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has acquitted former Employees Old-Age Benefit Institution (EOBI)chairman Zafar Iqbal Gondal and others in a Rs40 billion scam case.

Those acquitted in the decade-old case included Iqbal Haider, Najamus Saqib, Abid Hussain, Asif Hayat and Abdul Qayyum.

The court acquitted them as the prosecution failed to produce evidence in support of the allegations of Rs40bn corruption against them.

The Supreme Court in 2012 had taken a suo motu notice and ordered a thorough probe, based on media reports, into the alleged illegal investments of funds meant for pensioners and their survivors in risky property ventures and other businesses by the EOBI management.

Some senior officials were alleged to have received huge kickbacks.

The purchases were said to have been made in a very opaque manner and without the approval of the trustees of the institutions. Moreover, some influential elements in the real-estate business were also alleged to have gained from the ‘dishonest’ deals.

According to the investigations into the misappropriations, which came to light in 2012, the then EOBI management made investments in DHA scheme, purchased Crown Plaza in Islamabad at double than the market price and in an alleged illegal manner.

As per reports submitted by the FIA to the court, the EOBI management purchased two 4,300cc Prados for personal use of EOBI officers, purchased two controversial plots in Sukkur, bought seven plots from the CDA.

The FIA said the EOBI purchased 40 kanals and 16 marlas in Lahore, four floors of Plaza Hotel in Lahore and made investment in a seven-star hotel in front of the Lahore airport.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2023