ISLAMABAD: The Accountability Court, hearing multi-billion rupees fake bank accounts case, on Thursday, approved the request of plea bargain of an accused of misappropriation in Sindh tractor subsidy scam of Rs3.7 million.
Accountability Court-I judge Muhammad Bashir, while hearing the case, endorsed the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) decision of plea bargain of accused, Mumtaz Ali Abbasi, former executive engineer Agriculture Department Sindh.
NAB prosecutor, Irfan Bola, and investigation officer (IO) Muhammad Waqiar appeared before the court. The IO informed the court that this is the sixth accused who made plea bargain in this case.
Accused Aftab Ahmad Mastoi, Tara Chand and Ghulam Sarwar, Dedar Janjua and Her Chand Ray have so far made plea bargain, he said. The NAB has so far recovered Rs100 million in this case through plea bargain. According to the NAB, through fake Computerised National Identity Cards (CNIC) tractors were released in the name of farmers and then sold them in the open market.
According to a joint investigation report (JIT) on fake accounts, it was found out that one of the fake entities (M/s Iqbal Metals belonging to a deceased sanitary worker) was transacting with Orient Automotive Industries (Pvt) Ltd - a tractor manufacturer of Omni Group.
On this, the JIT landed into the investigation of the associated scam vis-à-vis misappropriation by Omni Group of tractors subsidies offered by the government of Sindh through Sindh Bank. It says the Sindh government initiated annual tractor subsidy schemes for poor farmers in the years, 2013 to 2016. Total subsidies amounting to Rs1,996.2 million were given. 51 percent of subsidy amounting to Rs1,021.2 million was dished out to tractors manufacturer of Omni Group (IMT and MTW), through a manipulated (queue jumping) technique of first come, first serve.
The report says that Sindh Bank was primarily used to manipulate the allotment of tractors to farmers in collusion with mainly three dealerships viz, Tara Chandh, Sarwar Bhatti and AltafChachar. These dealers would collect CNICs copies of their own persons, make down payment pay-orders and deposit with applications to the managers of Sindh Bank prior to the start of the annual scheme, it says.
As per the report, when the annual scheme would be announced, genuine applications were denied on the ground that requisite number of applications has already been received.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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