Rs 40 million financial bungling in PIEDMC: ACE registers case against 11 officials

Under the direction of the Punjab Chief Minister, Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif, the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) has registered a criminal case against 11 officials of the Punjab Industrial Estate Development and Management Company (PIEDMC) including former Chief Executive Officer, Sabir P. Chohan and former Company Secretary Muhammad Javed Iqbal following the financial bungling of over Rs 40 million in the company.
Earlier, the PID had sought permission of Punjab chief minister to initiate action in connection with the financial corruption in the PIEDMC under the PEEDA Act 2006. The Punjab chief minister was not fully agreed to the recommendations of the PID and directed to register a case with the ACE instead of initiating just a departmental inquiry over the financial bungling.
The inquiry, which was conducted by the inquiry team comprising Deputy Director Anti-Corruption, Kasur, Dr Muhammad Iqbal Shakir and Deputy Director Lahore Region, Rana Tariq Mehmood, revealed that a net loss of over Rs 41.7 million was caused to the national exchequer in connection with the financial bungling in PIEDMC. It also came to limelight that the former Chief Executive, Sabir P. Chohan spent over Rs 5 million on his treatment and medicines in a foreign country despite the fact that under the contract, he was entitled to get treatment facilities just within the country. He did not even bother to get permission for his overseas treatment from the Board of Directors (BoD) of the company. Likewise, the company was to purchase as much as 62 acres of land for the Tetra-pack Company for which an amount of Rs 10.2 million was paid out against 23 10 marla piece of land without having got the registry of the land. While a net amount of Rs 1.2 million was also paid out to the commission agent who fled to a foreign country having received the amount.
Meanwhile, the accused, Sabir P. Chohan, using unlawful authority allotted 15 acres of land in the Sunder Industrial Estate to his favourite persons who divided that into different plots, whereas the said plot was meant for the power plant. This way, Chohan caused a net damage of Rs 20 million to the national exchequer.
At the moment, there is a dire need of a power plant in the Sunder Industrial Estate but to install the same neither there is a piece of land nor there availability of such a land within the four kilometer radius. The company would have to bear an additional expenditure of 5.3 million to provide power supply to Sunder Industrial Estate by installing the power plant almost four kilometer away from the estate.
Director Anti-Corruption Lahore Region, Zulfiqar Ghumman disclosed that three former financial controllers namely Asif-ur-Rehman Mirza, Farhan Pervaiz and Muhammad Javed Sheikh while Accounts Manager, Muhammad Faisal Zia, Accounts Manager Saba Shahid Ali, Accounts Assistant Zaheer-ud-Din Ahmad, Yasir Aurangzeb, Commission Agent Muhammad Tufail Bhatti and former Customer Services Manager, Raza Tariq, include among others who caused damage to the national exchequer.