PESHAWAR, Nov 22: On the request of the Swiss government, the National Accountab-ility Bureau on Thursday arrested an official of a Swiss-funded project, Small Scale Enterprise Promotion (SSEP).

The accused, Abdul Manan, coordination manager of the project funded by Swiss Agency for Development and Cooper-ation (SDC), is charged with some other officials with embezzling more than Rs30 million

The accused  was produced before an accountability court on Friday, which remanded him in the custody of NAB for 12 days.

NAB had received a request from the Swiss ambassador in July for starting  a probe into misappropriation of more than Rs30 million by the officials in the SSEP.

After preliminary inquiry NAB found the officials involved in large-scale financial irregularities. The bureau is looking for the project director, Fasihuzzaman, who is absconding.

It is learnt that the SDC has also been looking into cases of alleged sexual harassment of women employees by the project director and a manager.

Sources told Dawn that before the project was stopped, after detection of the bungling, some women employees were selected from low-income groups and allegedly forced to act in accordance with  the wishes of the top officials.

The SSEP was conceived in 1994 as a pilot project for small enterprise development for income and employment generation, and entrusted to Swiss Contact, a non-governmental organization, for implementation.

It remained operational from 1998 till 2001, however, it was stopped due to indication of financial misappropriation by the management.