ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Board (NAB) authorised 13 inquiries against various personalities, including former MNA Ghulam Rabbani Khar and his daughter Hina Rabbani Khar, authorized 3 investigations against former PM Ch. Shujaat Hussain and former Punjab CM Ch. Pervaiz Elahi and started interrogation against former ports and shipping minister Kamran Michael over allegations of corruption and misuse of authority.
Chairman Justice (r) Javed Iqbal chaired Board’s Executive Board Meeting (EBM) and approved these inquiries against senior politicians and government officials. He said that taking mega corruption cases to its logical conclusion is the foremost priority of the bureau, adding that the bureau is strictly following the principle of “accountability for all”. “We, in bureau, don’t see faces and believe to conclude the case according to substantial evidence and due process of the law,” he said. “We believe to meet all legal requirements for arrest of corrupt elements, proclaimed offenders and absconders, who plundered national wealth,” he added.
Following orders of the NAB Chairman, the NAB Karachi arrested and started interrogating PML-N leader Kamran Michael, the former federal minister for ports and shipping, over allegations of misuse of authority and pocketing over Rs1 billion in bribes. Director General NAB Karachi Brig (R) Farooq Nasar Awan played a crucial role in digging out this case of corruption and misuse of authority. He is affectively carrying forward the mission of the Chairman NAB Justice (R) Javed Iqbal and pursuing his vision of “accountability for all & zero tolerance against corruption”. NAB Karachi under dynamic leadership of Brig (R) Farooq Nasar Awan is striving hard to take culprits to task without discrimination and recover maximum looted assets back to the affectees as well as to Federal and Provincial Government.
The anti-graft body’s spokesperson, who termed the arrest a “major breakthrough”, said that Michael has been accused of illegally allotting three commercial and residential apartment plots in prime locations of KPT Cooperative Housing Society (Mai Kolachi area) in Karachi to his favourites, against which he allegedly received a huge sum.
“The former federal minister abused his authority by influencing the officials to carry out his illegal orders of making allotments in 2013,” said the NAB official, adding that the trio of plots are worth Rs1.05 billion. The evidence against Michael, NAB Karachi says, was unearthed during their investigation into a corruption reference filed in a separate probe involving 16 other plots.
In May 2018, the NAB had reportedly launched a probe against Michael for allegedly accumulating assets beyond his known sources of income during his stint as the ports and shipping minister. Michael has served as a minister for statistics in former PM Abbasi’s cabinet from August 2017 to May 2018. He has also served as the minister for human rights in the third tenure of former PM Nawaz Sharif from 2013 to 2017. Michael held the portfolio of minister for ports and shipping from 2013 to 2016.
It is pertinent to mention here that as per a complaint submitted to the NAB, during the tenure of Kamran Michael as Ports and Shipping Minister, big shipping companies like Maersk Pakistan and terminal operator QICT allegedly started to loot genuine importers by demanding extra demurrage and detention charges in violation of set customs laws and it has now become the biggest shipping scam worth Rs 610 billion. He allegedly did not take notice of the Indians illegal appointment at the QICT through it holding company DP World. Ports are highly sensitive and strategic assets of Pakistan which cannot be given in the hands of nationals of hostile countries. Taking action on the complaint, now the NAB Karachi has authorized inquiry against 65 officials of QICT and Maersk in a mega scam case of Rs 610 billion.
