ACE silent over corruption cases against former DCO, EDO Finance

The authorities of Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) have kept deep silence over the matter of alleged corruption of millions of rupees by former District Co-ordination Officer (DCO) Zulifqar Ali Shah and former Executive District Officer (EDO) Finance Zahoor Ahmed Abbasi, well placed sources told Business Recorder on Friday.
National Accountability Bureau's (NAB) Karachi office on January 25, 2010 had referred the matter to the Chairman ACE and suggested necessary action as per law. The former Chairman ACE had marked the letter of NAB for inquiry to the inquiries section, where the matter was just allotted diary number, 278, and no further investigation was carried out in this regard, sources said.
The complainant, Moharam Ali, resident of Naushehroferoze, had alleged that official residence and furniture for the DCO Naushehroferoze were available when Nazar Mohammad Kalhoro was DCO of the district, but when Zulifqar Ali Shah took over as DCO, he shown in official records expenditure of more than Rs 10 million over the constructed bungalow and drawn the huge amount from the government budget. There was no need to construct a double boundary wall around the bungalow but he had drawn the money from government treasury without issuing tender and misused more than 2 million by changing and drawing the elapsed government funds to account four with connivance of treasury officer, the complainant said.
Despite the complaint was referred to ACE by the NAB, the officials have not touch the issue in depth and kept in the cold storage. An official of ACE claimed that majority of corruption matters used to be resolved on the basis of "give and take" in ACE.