F.P. Report
LAHORE: Four more officers of the Punjab Land Development Company (PLDC) have been arrested by the National Accountability Bureau in Ashiana-e-Iqbal housing scheme case, and will be presented in the court on Saturday.
According to NAB, the arrested officers include Bilal Qadwai, Imtiaz Haider, Colonel (retd) Arif and Lahore Development Authority (LDA) Chief Engineer Israr Saeed.
Qadwai was working as the economic specialist in Strategic Planning Unit for the Ashiana-e-Iqbal housing scheme.
The probing body interrogated the arrested officers for over nine hours.
NAB started probe into the housing scheme after finding out that officials in the Punjab government ordered “cancellation of award of contract of Ashiana-e-Iqbal to successful bidder Ch Latif and Sons, leading to award of contract to Lahore Casa Developers (JV), a proxy of Paragon City (Pvt) Limited, which resulted in the loss of Rs193 million approximately”.
A statement by the anti-graft body read that Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif directed PLDC to award consultancy services of Aashiana-e-Iqbal project for Rs192 million approximately, but its actual cost was Rs35 million.
Prior to the arrest of the four officers, NAB also arrested others, including former director general of LDA, Ahad Cheema, and Shahid Shafiq, chief executive officer of Bismillah Engineering Company, a C-4 category organisation part of the joint venture Lahore Casa Developers that was ineligible for the contract.
