Royal Palm lease case: NAB to take action against former generals

ISLAMABAD: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal has approved the filing of a corruption reference against former railways minister Lt Gen (retd) Javed Ashraf Qazi and former railways board chairman Lt Gen (retd) Saeeduz Zafar in the Royal Palm case.

Qazi, a former chief of the Inter Services Intelligence, and Zafar, former Peshawar corps commander, are accused of giving land of the Pakistan Railways to the Royal Palm Golf and Country Club on a nominal lease, causing loss worth Rs2 billion to the national exchequer, during the tenure of General (retd) Pervez Musharraf when they were running the Pakistan Railways. 

According to a NAB press release following a meeting of the NAB Executive Board on Tuesday, Maj Gen (retd) Hamid Butt and Brigadier (retd) Akhtar Ali Baig are among several suspects who will be named in the Royal Palm reference. 

The NAB chief has also directed to file references of misconduct against former WAPDA chairman Tariq Hameed and former member power Anwar Khalid. Moreover, references will be filed against former member water Mohammad Mushtaq and former member finance Imtiaz Anjum for alleged misuse of authority and costing the public exchequer loss of billions of rupees.

The meeting also decided to inquire into the reported misconduct in recognition of 12 medical colleges by Federal Health Minister Saira Afzal Tarrar. 

Moreover, it was decided that inquiries will be conducted against Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan’s Abdul Rauf Siddiqui, Adil Siddiqui, Doctor Sarwat Faheem and others for illegal recruitments and allotment of state land in the Sindh Small Industry Corporation.

Additionally, former Capital Development Authority chairman Farkhand Iqbal and others will be probed for selling industrial plots for peanuts.

Similarly, inquiries will be conducted against former Peshawar Development Authority DG Sahibzada Saeeh Ahmed and Syed Zahir Shah for misuse of authority. 

Former Nazim Tamash Khan will be investigated for owning assets disproportionate to his declared source of income, according to the NAB press release. 

An inquiry into the accumulation of assets beyond known sources of income will also be conducted against Balochistan health minister Rehman Baloch.