The Accountability Court hearing the multibillion rupees fake banks accounts case on Thursday released one of the accused of Roshan Sindh project case after he became an approver against other accused.

The investigation officer (IO) of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) produced accused Abdul Shakoor, former director general (DG) Rural Development, who was earlier arrested by the Bureau in connection with Roshan Sindh project scam, before Accountability Court Judge Muhammad Bashir. The IO told the court that the accused has filed an application to become an approver and the chairman NAB has approved it.

The IO requested the court to set him free and include his name in the witnesses' list. The court approved NAB's request and ordered to release Shakoor.

According to details, the Sindh government on September 22, 2014 approved the first project of Roshan Sindh to install 20,000 solar lights by June 2016 in major municipal and town committees across the province at a cost of Rs 4 billion.

Reportedly, solar streetlights were installed on specific roads of certain cities, while the most of the areas were ignored. Originally, 1,000 solar lights were to be installed in districts Malir and West Karachi, 4,000 in Hyderabad division, 3,500 each in Mirpurkhas and Shaheed Benazirabad, 4,000 in Sukkur and as many in Larkana. This project also turned out to be the costliest of them all, with each of the installed solar bulb costing Rs 0.2 million.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019