LAHORE: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Lahore Director General Shahzad Saleem has disclosed that inquiries against seven companies out of the 56 companies in Punjab are in final stages while assets worth over Rs 1 billion have so far been seized from suspects.

Shahzad Saleem made this disclosure while giving a detailed briefing to NAB Chairman Javed Iqbal, who chaired a high-level meeting at the Bureau's headquarters in Lahore on Tuesday. While briefing the chairman about progress of the cases initiated against 56 companies in Punjab, the DG NAB unveiled that inquiries against seven companies were in finals stages while cases of 16 companies had been referred to the headquarters for taking further legal actions.

He said that references against the Lahore Parking Company (LPC), Punjab Power Development Company (PPDC), Punjab Land Development Company and Punjab Saaf Pani Company-South (PSPC-S) were filed before different accountability courts "since the beginning of the PTI regime". He added that 33 inquiries had been closed for lack of evidence.

The DG said they have made an indirect recovery of at least Rs 1 billion from Naveed Akram, an accused in the PPDC case. In the LPC case, recovery of Rs 80 million was also made though plea bargain law, he said, adding that the NAB is also assisting the Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC) in getting the ownership of its nearly 500 heavy vehicles from two international firms. He mentioned that approximate worth of these vehicles is around Rs 4-5 billion.

About the well-known Double-Shah case, the DG said the bureau recovered Rs 3.49 billion from the suspect and distributed Rs 2.40 billion among aggrieved persons.

He said that under the leadership of Javed Iqbal (from 2017), the bureau collectively recovered over Rs 75 billion. He regretted that the bureau recovered only Rs 41.7 in the last 17 years.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021