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LAHORE, Nov 22: An accountability court on Friday indicted two men in the Awami Tractor Scheme reference on charges of causing a Rs9.9 million loss to national exchequer.
Asif Sharif and Khalid Sharif, chief executive and director of a company that sold tractors, pleaded not guilty to the charges. The court summoned prosecution witnesses for Nov 22.
According to the chargesheet, the government launched the Awami Tractor Scheme in 1994 for import of tractors. The scheme was funded by the Allied Bank of Pakistan.
The two accused applied for allotment of an import quota of 8,000 tractors, which they were allowed. Under the agreement, the accused were bound to sell all the tractors or return any unsold ones to the bank.
However, the accused sold 7,967 tractors at a price of Rs143,717 per unit and retained the remaining 33 that were valued at Rs4.9 million in 1994 and Rs9.9 million at present.
The accused are already being tried on charges of embezzling Rs84 million in collusion with their business partner, Hamdard Khalid.
According to this reference, some 1,430 people applied for the Ursus tractors that were to be imported by the accused from Poland, depositing a total of Rs270.53 million with the accused. Allegedly, more than 740 of the applicants neither got tractors nor were they returned the advance payment that amounted to Rs84 million.
SCCL REFERENCE: The prosecution completed its side of the story in a NAB reference against former Punjab cooperatives secretary Javed Iqbal Bukhari and a former general manager of the defunct Services Cooperative Credit Corporation Limited (SCCCL), Ejaz Ahmad Awan.
The investigating officer appeared as the last prosecution witness. The court fixed Nov 25 for recording the statement of the accused.
As alleged by the NAB, Mr Bukhari, in collaboration with Mr Ejaz, got himself a Rs23.986 million SCCCL loan in 1987 in violation of the rules and did not pay it off.
When the matter was referred to the NAB earlier this year, Mr Bukhari struck a deal with the NAB and the Punjab Cooperative Board for Liquidation for payment of the loan in instalments. However, all he ever paid was the first installment.
In another reference last June, Mr Ejaz was sentenced to 14 years of RI and fined Rs5 million for misappropriation of SCCCL funds.
