ISLAMABAD - Pakistan’s former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Wajid Shamsul Hassan, has not only ignored National Accountability Bureau’s notices and has not bothered to respond to the corruption allegations, The Nation learnt yesterday.
NAB had issued a final notice to summon Hassan in the mid of April last in the case of alleged misuse of funds during his tenure as Pakistan High Commissioner in UK.
NAB sources told The Nation, the national anti-corruption watchdog had given him one month to appear before the Bureau and record his statement.
They said that the NAB had also sent details of allegations and asked Wajid to submit his written reply of these allegations but every time he replied that he could not travel to Pakistan due to his poor health conditions.
According to documents available with The Nation, the Auditor General of Pakistan in its audit report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for 1996 -1997 pointed out financial irregularities committed during his tenure (June 1994 to November 1996) as High Commissioner of Pakistan to the United Kingdom.
The documents reveal that the Audit General of Pakistan pointed out that Shams had withdrawn 10,81,141 pounds during his tenure for the projection of Pakistan activities and lobbying on Kashmir, unrealistic expenditure on entertainment and gifts and purchase of first class air tickets twice without permission of competent authority and other activities over and above the entitlement.
NAB asked Wajid to submit a detailed statement or appear in person before the NAB Rawalpindi on 15-03-2016 to record his statement but he did not appear, documents say.
Talking to The Nation, NAB Spokesperson Asim Ali Nawazish said that he was not aware about the latest status of former High Commissioner’s case but he confirmed that the former HC did not take notices of NAB summons seriously.
On the other hand, Chairman NAB Qamar Zaman Chaudhary visited NAB Karachi Bureau yesterday to review its performance.
During his visit, the Chairman said that NAB Karachi is one of the important regional bureaus of NAB. It played a prominent role in contributing towards the overall performance of NAB. He said that in view of the assessed annual performance for the year 2015 based on evaluation under quantified grading system conducted by Chairman’s Inspection and Monitoring Team (CI&MT) during 2016 graded NAB Karachi’s performance as outstanding/excellent with 88% operational efficiency index (OEI) which is highly appreciated.
He said that NAB is Pakistan’s apex anti-corruption organization assigned with the responsibility of elimination of corruption and corrupt practices through a holistic approach of awareness, prevention and enforcement. It operates under the National Accountability Ordinance-1999 which is extended to all of Pakistan, including FATA and Gilgit Baltistan. NAB has its headquarters at Islamabad while it has eight regional bureaus located at Karachi, Lahore, Pehsawar, Quetta, Sukkur, Multan and Rawlapindi.
Earlier, DG NAB Karachi Col ® Siraj ul Naeem gave a detailed briefing to the Chairman NAB about the performance of NAB Karachi during 2015 and 2016 and highlighted its achievements in eradication of corruption.