Sugarcane grower subsidy scam: Four accused to be declared POs if they fail to appear on Nov 12

ISLAMABAD: The Accountability Court hearing fake bank accounts case on Tuesday initiated process of declaring four accused proclaimed offender (PO) for not appearing before it in the case regarding misappropriation in the government subsidy awarded for sugarcane growers.

Accountability Court judge Ashgar Ali, while hearing the case, started the process of declaring four accused including Ali Kamal Majeed, Nimr Majeed, Manahil Majeed and Saima Majeed, over their failure to join the trial in the case, despite being repeatedly issued summons.

At the start of the hearing, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) investigation officer (IO) informed the court that the warrants of four accused issued by the court could not be executed as they were not found at their residences.

The court ordered that the accused persons had been given the last chance to appear before the court on November 12, to defend charges against them or else they would be declared a proclaimed offender (PO).

Accused Abdul Ghani Majeed and Khawaja Mustafa Zulqarnain appeared before the court. The NAB has nominated 40 accused in the reference. The bureau filed the reference against the accused over charges of embezzlement of millions of funds issued by the government of Sindh to sugar mills as a subsidy for onward payment to sugarcane farmers.

The Sindh government through provincial cane commissioner paid Rs3.9 billion to various sugar mills for onward payment to genuine sugarcane growers as subsidy on account of supply of sugarcane for the season 2014-2015. An investigation was conducted against eight sugar mills owned by the Omni Group of Anwar Majeed, and his four sons, Abdul Ghani Majeed, Nimr Majeed, Mustafa Zulqarnain Majeed, and Ali Kamal Majeed.

The investigation revealed that out of Rs728.18 million subsidy granted to eight sugar mills of Omni Group, an amount of Rs346 million had been allegedly misappropriated in connivance with senior employees by showing their low-paid staff as sugarcane growers.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020