LAHORE - On the accusation of embezzling Rs1 billion Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC) funds, an accountability court on Wednesday remanded former LWMC managing director Waseem Ajmal in the custody of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for 10 days.
Waseem, who is also accused in Saaf Pani case and has been granted bail by the Lahore High Court division bench, was produced before Special Judge Accountability Court Ameer Muhammad Khan who conducted the case proceedings. At the outset of the proceedings, the NAB prosecutor submitted that the accused was a grade-20 officer and had served as LWMC MD.
Accusing the suspect of embezzling over Rs 1 billion in the LWMC project, the NAB official requested to the court to grant 15-day remand of the accused for investigation.
On the other side, the defence counsel opposed the remand plea and the arrest of his client. He contended that the accused would be promoted to Grade-21 after three months course.
When the court questioned, the the NAB prosecutor submitted that the NAB chairman’s permission had been sought for the arrest of Grade-17 and above.
Waseem Ajmal denied all the allegations levelled against him as baseless in the LWMC case. He told the court that he remained under NAB custody for 48 days in Saaf Pani case but he was not investigated for more than two hours.
After hearing the arguments, the court granted the physical remand of the accused to the NAB for 10 days and directed for producing him on November 30.
The accountability bureau alleges that the contract for preparation of consultancy services was awarded to the LWMC by the city district government, Rawalpindi in 2012. As per terms of reference of the contract, the consultants were supposed to prepare the cost estimates and pre-qualification criteria.
The bidding documents included draft agreements for the outsourcing of the Solid Waste Management (SWM) services whereas, the core team of the collective consultancy team comprised the members who were associated with preparation of cost estimates, bidding documents etc -- LWMC MD Waseem Ajmal, CFO Rana Muhammad Arif, GM Procurement retired Col Muhammad Tahir and GM Legal Operations Khalid Majeed.