RAHIM YAR KHAN - An Anti Corruption Establishment (ACE) team arrested an officer of Public Health Department for his alleged involvement in the embezzlement of Rs820 million in the Mega Sewerage Project (MSP) worth Rs2.5 billion.
This was disclosed by Ace Deputy Director Syed Ayub Bukhari in a press conference on Wednesday. Bukhari said that SDO Farooq Ahmed Saddique was involved in the corruption of Rs 820 million with 17 other accused during the construction of the project out of which 5 accused were already arrested and their challans have been submitted before the court.
He said that the project was started in 2007 and completed in 2012 with the amount of Rs2.5 billion and its total length was 84 kilometer as it was a big project in the Punjab. He further said that Farooq was hiding himself as an inquiry in case 24/16 was underway. Farooq appeared before the LHC Bahawalpur bench for his pre-arrest bail but as his bail rejected by the court and the decision was to be announced, he managed to escape from the court.
However, the ACE officials by using Call Tracing Technology (CTT) got Farooq’s cell phone location. The ACE team went to Bahawalnagar and arrested him. He said that another important accused among 12 was Nespak engineer Hafiz Ijaz who is in Holland nowadays for a departmental course.
Bukhari added that in another case his team arrested a senior medical officer of Sheikh Zayed Medical College Hospital (SZMCH) on the charges of taking admission to MBBS on fake certificate of FSc. Bukhari said that he with circle officer Arshad investigated the matter.
On having proof regarding allegation, they arrested a senior medical officer of Anesthesia department Dr Abdul Ghaffar on Tuesday night. SZMCH spokesperson Ilyas Ahmed told the media that Dr Abdul Ghaffar was working in SZMCH for last 10 years in scale 18. He said that SZMCH administration got verified his credentials from the institutions concerned but the ACE arrested him after their investigation.
Answering to a question, he said that accused Dr Abdul Ghaffar was an active member of Young Doctors Association. Some sources in SZMCH told this correspondent that there were many employees in the institution having fake degrees or certificates working on gazetted seats by using the platforms of different associations.
Bilal Habib
