ISLAMABAD, April 6: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Friday announced that it had reimbursed the first instalment to around 3,000 affected plot-seekers of the Askaria Town Housing Scheme scam.

NAB had received a total of 3,361 applications from the affected people till the end of March 2007 and an amount of Rs80.209 million was remitted to the bank accounts of 2,975 allottees as the first instalment. The amount of the first instalment is stated to be 35 per cent of the down payment the applicants had made.

According to the Bureau, remittance of this partial payment to the affected plot-seekers was being done after a detailed scrutiny and tallying of documents, submitted by the claimants with the record available with the Bureau.

The NAB observed that the management of the Askaria Town did not maintain a proper record of files and memberships, due to which the process of verification and checking of claims became a long-drawn and hectic exercise.

The NAB’s Awareness and Prevention Division has asked those affected people who have still not filed their claims, to send their original documents and affidavit to the Director Financial Crimes Investigation Wing (FCIW), NAB, Rawalpindi, or contact his directly on telephone number 051-9281148 for obtaining a specimen of the required affidavit or any other information.

The Askaria Town Housing Scheme (ATHS) scam was unearthed in Nov 2005, by which time its administration had sold over 17,000 memberships and collected billions of rupees, although it had very a small piece of land, in Zone-VI, which could only accommodate 500 people.

The NAB had already confiscated the entire record of a ATHS but it had been reported that the housing scheme’s management had mysteriously drawn a huge amount of Rs1 billion from the scheme’s bank account shortly before the NAB action.

According to the law, the office-bearers of any private housing scheme could not draw the money from the scheme’s bank account.

“The office-bearers of the housing scheme could have escaped with the drawn money, if they had not been arrested by the NAB,” the source said.

The Capital Development Authority (CDA) had also declared the ATHS scheme ‘illegal’ and warned the general public not to get involved themselves in the scam.

Under the CDA rules, the availability of 800 kanals of land was a must or any housing scheme in Zone-VI. However, the management of ATHS had only 395 kanals of land and that too in the name of one of the members of its board of directors and not in the scheme.

However, The ATHS’s management had claimed that it had met all CDA requirements and those of the Islamabad local administration.