Patriot Report
ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has recovered nearly Rs 3.25 billion in cash and property from former finance secretary of Balochistan Mushtaq Ahmed Raisani and contractor Sohail Majeed Shah under plea bargain (PB) deals in the mega corruption scandal.
Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, NAB Director General Zahir Shah said NAB had accepted plea bargain application of Mushtaq Raisani for depositing Rs 2.25 billion in cash and property with the national exchequer and that of Sohail Majeed for Rs 960 million.
The NAB DG said as per law the recovered amount was transferred to the national exchequer after the plea bargain was materialized.
‘NAB will not keep a penny from this… nor does it ever keep the recovered amount,’ he replied to a question.
Giving a breakdown of the cash and properties seized by NAB as part of the plea bargain deal, Shah said Raisani had surrendered Rs653 million in cash and 3.3 kilogram of gold worth Rs13.5m to NAB. This cash and gold had been recovered during a NAB raid at his residence in May.
Raisani has also given up two properties, the first one, worth Rs60m is in Quetta and the other is located in Karachi’s DHA worth Rs70m.
‘These are in addition to the 11 properties already seized by NAB’ from Raisani and Majeed, Shah said. All 11 of these properties are in DHA and are valued at a purchase price of Rs1.25bn. They include two commercial plazas, three houses of minimum 500 sq yards each and six ‘very valuable’ residential plots.
‘NAB expects that the 11 properties will sell for between Rs1.5bn to 2bn.’
Raisani has also surrendered two luxury cars including a Mercedes Benz and a Toyota Grande both of which are worth nearly Rs8m, Shah said.
Hence, the total assets surrendered by Raisani are worth Rs800m while his 11 properties are worth Rs1.25bn.
Talking about the alleged corruption of Sohail Majeed Shah, contractor and frontman of Khalid Lango, ex-adviser to Chief Minister Balochistan, the NAB official said the accused had agreed to return all the money that he passed onto others.
‘He has surrendered Rs960m which went into his accounts.’
Sohail Shah has also given up some ‘valuable’ houses that he possesses, he announced.
He said the NAB had emerged victorious in 76 % of court cases, which was the highest conviction rate in the world in term of white collar crimes.
From 2012 to 2016, he said, the NAB had recovered Rs 6 billion through Plea Bargain and Rs 13 billion through voluntary return. The total amount recovered during the period was Rs 45.37 billion, which also included recovery in bank loan cases.
He said since its inception, the Bureau had recovered Rs 284 billion while 917 cases were settled under plea bargain deals and around 2900 cases under voluntary return.
Zahir Shah said credit should be given to the NAB Chairman and his team, which had ensured recovery, ultimately giving benefit to the national kitty.