ISLAMABAD, Feb 8: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) decided on Wednesday to investigate the sale of Pakistan embassy buildings in Tokyo and Jakarta at throwaway prices.

A meting of NAB’s executive board decided to take some officials of the Foreign Office to the task for the ‘grey’ deals causing millions of dollars of loss to the national exchequer. The issue was earlier taken up by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly.

A compliant received by NAB said the Foreign Office had sold the old chancery and embassy residence in Tokyo in 2007 under a swap arrangement on single evaluation, causing a loss of 6.3 billion yens.

The evaluation company was chosen without advertisement and the decision was taken on a single purchase offer, again without advertisement.

The PAC had stopped short of fixing responsibility on any official.

In February 2002, then ambassador to Indonesia Mustafa Anwar reportedly sold the chancery building for $1.32 million.

The property was disposed of in a non-transparent manner, without advertisement and the ambassador entered into a binding sale agreement with the buyer without the approval of the ministry.

Then chief executive of Pakistan, Gen Pervez Musharraf condoned the irregularity and approved the deal after the sale.

The NAB board also approved an inquiry against owners of Anmol Textile Mills, Lahore, for default from the Bank of Punjab ofmore than Rs300 million.

The case of Khurshid Spinning Mills, Faisalabad, related to a loan default of more than Rs150 million was referred to the Punjab NAB.

The meeting approved the filing of a reference against Arz Mohammad Umarni, former deputy commissioner of Sibi, for illegal allotment of state land to some favourites.

The board ordered revival of a reference against owners of Quice Food Industry in an accountability court because of violation of the payment schedule agreed with the Allied Bank.

It accepted plea bargain of Chaudhry Rasheed Khan, former superintending engineer (SE) of Wapda, for acquisition of assets beyond his known sources of income.

It also approved plea bargains of Amir Zaman Shinwari, former SE, and Chaudhry Amin and Mian Babar Qayyum, executive engineers, of the public works department and Jehanzeb Khan, deputy director, W&S, Bannu.

The meeting rejected an application for voluntary repayment of Wazirzada Shinwari and other PWD officials because there case is under trial.

The bureau closed inquires against Sahiwal DFO Mahmood Ahmed Rana, former TMO of Bahawalpur Abdul Quddus Bhatti, Bahawalnagar National Registration Office Director Mohamad Munir, and others; Lodhran DOR Tariq Zaman Khan; ProfMohammad Hanif Arif of Multan; former DSP Chaudhry Mohammad Akram; Akro Protection Services chief executive Brig (retd) Saadul Hadi; former deputy director of Sindh population welfare department Noor Ali Shah; Syed Atif Sulman and Fareha Iraj because of lack of substantial evidence.