ISLAMABAD: Senate Standing Committee on Finance, Revenues, Privatisation and Economic Affairs on Wednesday directed the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to ensure the recovery of embezzled amount of Modarba victims and return it to them immediately.
The committee, which met here in the Parliament House under the chairmanship of Senator Saleem H Mandviwala, discussed matters relating to Euro Bonds and US Bonds, bedsides discussing government of Pakistan and International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreement.
The committee also discussed in detail matters relating to promotion policy strategy of National Bank of Pakistan, the action taken by NAB against Modarba companies for the recovery of the plundered money, the role of NADRA in holding of national census, and affairs of State and Frontier Regions (SAFRON).
Regarding the Modarba issue, the NAB director general informed the committee that 76 cases have been reported and after scrutiny it would be confirmed that how many companies were involved in the Modarba case.
He told the committee that cases have been registered against 25 big companies and some of them were also ready to pay the plundered amount. The NAB DG said Rs 24 billion were looted from 34,400 people in the scam. The director general informed the committee that the bureau has also recovered Rs 700 million and frozen assets worth Rs 13 billion.
Appreciating the efforts of the bureau, Saleem Mandiviwala urged NAB to ensure the recovery of looted money of the victims.
Senator Kamil Ali Agha asked what action the bureau has taken to recover the looted money in Lahore Taj Company and Shifa Medicos cases. The committe was informed that 78 percent assets of Taj Company have been returned to the people and now the company was working with new name. The committee recommended that the case of Shifa Medicos should be referred to the NAB.
Briefing the Upper House committee on census, the NADRA director general said the Interior Ministry has given guidelines with regard to census in the country and local people would be involved in the process.
He said that 2013 elections were also held on the basis of NADRA’s computerised national identity cards and no complaint was received yet.
The Senate body was also briefed about the fraud occurred in the NBP Branch Bangladesh. The Senate body was informed that the NBP branch in Bangladesh started its operations in 1994 while three new branches were also opened there in 2008 where most of the employees were Bengalis. The committee was informed that the people there borrowed Rs 170 million and did not return the amount to the bank.
The Upper House committee was told that an inquiry had been already conducted and investigation was also in progress to fix the responsibility of those responsible for the lapse. The NBP president assured the committee that the bank was taking steps for the improvement of the system so that in future no similar incident should occur again.
Senators Mohsin Khan Leghari, Aisha Raza Farooq, Kamil Ali Agha, Nuzhat Sadiq, Islamuddin Sheikh, Finance secretary, NAB DG, NADRA DG, Statistics secretary and senior government officials also attended the meeting.
