ISLAMABAD, May 26: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) here on Friday cleared three retired generals including Federal Education Minister Javed Ashraf Qazi in the $98million Chinese locomotives scam, saying the official had struck the deal in “good faith”.
Headed by ruling party MNA, Col (retired) Ghulam Rasool, a subcommittee of PAC exonerated three top retired military officials — Lt-Gen Javed Ashraf Qazi, the then federal minister for railways, Lt-Gen Saeeduz Zafar, the then chairman Pakistan Railways and Lt-Gen Butt, the then general manager administration of PR — in a scandal that had made headlines in the national press recently.
The three officials were facing charges of buying 69 locomotives from China on supplier’s credit at an amount of $98million (Rs5.9billion approximately) without even trying to know that the locomotives could not operate in Pakistani conditions.
The deal was struck in 2002 and the locomotives were brought to Pakistan only to become inoperative within a couple of years.
Some of the most deadliest recent rail accidents occurred due to the Chinese locomotives and bogies as they could not run on the Pakistani tracks mostly dating back to the era of British Raj.
After hearing the arguments from the ministry, Mr Sahi said: “Though there was misconduct in the procurement of locomotives, the then administration had made the deal in good faith, therefore, this issue stands settled.”
On Thursday, another subcommittee headed by the same retired colonel refused to refer to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) a scam in which some military officials including a retired brigadier were involved.
On Wednesday, PPP MNA Qamaruz Zaman Kaira was heading the subcommittee aimed at investigating a privatization scandal dating back to the second tenure of former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto.
During its ongoing series of meetings, the PAC and its subcommittees have been unable to fix responsibilities in corruption cases in which military officials are involved.
The subcommittee could not muster courage to fix responsibilities against the three military highups even after railways secretary Shakeel Durrani informed in categorical terms that rules were seriously violated when the deal was struck with China.
“Had I been the chairman railways at that time, I would have never gone for such a deal,” Mr Durrani added.
It is to mention here that the PAC had taken a suo motu action following media reports highlighting loopholes in the deal at a time when 33 of the Chinese locomotives had developed faults.