• ACE registers case against project director, his aide
• Over Rs8.5bn paid to contractors in advance without any bank guarantee, initial probe finds
• Officials say efforts underway to arrest suspects

KARACHI: The World Bank-funded Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Yellow Line project is marred by allegations of over Rs8 billion corruption as the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) has registered a criminal case against two senior government officials.

Reports of alleged multibillion-rupee corruption in the Yellow Line project — from Dawood Chowrangi, Quaidabad to Jam Sadiq Bridge — have been doing the rounds on social media for a couple of weeks and recently the Jamaat-i-Islami has demanded an independent investigation to bring those responsible to justice and recover misappropriated public funds.

The Sindh government, however, kept mum over the issue and the opposition JI accused it of shielding the “corrupt” officers, who went underground to avoid arrest.

However, official documents revealed that the Sindh government was dealing with the matter since last month and on June 1 the Anti-Corruption Committee No 1, headed by the chief secretary, communicated the issue to the ACE director general, asking him to register a case against accused officials.

As a result, the ACE has registered a case against Project Director Zameer Abbasi and Procurement Director Jhamandas for allegedly misusing their authority and making advance payments worth Rs8bn to Yellow Line contractors that caused significant financial losses to the Sindh government.

The FIR was registered on behalf of the state against Mr Abbasi, a grade-19 officer, and Jhamandas, under Sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery) 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document), 477-A (falsification of accounts) and 34 (common intentions) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 5 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947.

Officials said that the case was registered on the basis of an inquiry dated May 29 into alleged financial mismanagement in three construction contracts — New Jam Sadiq Bridge, construction of Depot-I at Dawood Chowrangi and construction of Depot-II at Indus Hospital — as part of the WB-funded Yellow Line project.

“The project suffered from gross maladministration, blatant financial indiscipline and both implicit and explicit losses to the government,” reads the FIR, a copy of which is available to Dawn.

Referring to the record and statements, it is stated in the FIR that “There is no denying the fact that the project’s financial management is marred with severe indiscipline to the extent of criminal negligence in connivance with the contractors”.

“The financial indiscipline/fraud seems to be in collusion with the Director Procurement Mr Jhamandas (an employee of Local Government Department) and the contractors are in league with Zameer Abbasi in seeking the favours,” it said.

The ACE alleged that the “assignment account facility has been grossly misused by Mr Abbasi and Mr Jhamandas”, which amounted to “corrupt practices, to say the least”.

It has been pointed out in the official documents that hefty advance payments had been made despite the fact that the contracts lacked any specific clause regarding “advance payment and financial assistance to the contractors”.

The officials said that instead of arranging project financing through the commercial market, the contractors managed to secure so-called financial assistance to the extent of Rs8.5bn “without any bank guarantee”.

“This is a violation of public trust, financial indiscipline and favouring contractors at the cost of government loss,” the FIR said, quoting the findings of the inquiry committee.

“The accused persons, in connivance with each other, committed criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery, preparation of false record, abuse of official position, blatant financial indiscipline and both implicit and explicit losses to the government, causing wrongful loss to the public exchequer and wrongful gain to themselves,” it added.

The officials said that the role of other persons involved in the project was being determined by investigators.

The over 21km-long Yellow Line project was approved by the federal government in 2019 at an estimated cost of over Rs61bn. However, its PC-1 was revised in 2025 and the cost of the project was increased to over Rs173bn. The project was supposed to be completed in 2028.

Key suspect on the run

Sources said that Mr Abbasi, who is described as the key suspect in the multibillion-rupee fraud, did not appear before any inquiry.

They said multiple raids had been conducted on his DHA and Khairpur residences but to no avail.

They added that efforts were on to arrest the key suspect as early as possible.

Earlier this month, he had approached the Sindh High Court’s Sukkur Bench seeking protection against what he called “unlawful harassment and raids”.

In the petition, he alleged that raids had been conducted on his residences in Karachi and Khairpur “without search warrants, or court orders, or prior legal authorisation, and no notice, summons, or call-up notice regarding any inquiry or criminal investigation was ever served upon him prior to these actions”.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2026