LAHORE: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Punjab will recover the total embezzled money in the National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) scam until December 31, FIA Punjab Director Zafar Ahmed Qureshi said on Tuesday in a press conference at his office.
Qureshi told journalists that FIA Punjab had summoned wife and two daughters of former defence state minister Major (r) Habibullah Warraich to appear before inquiry officers in order to record their statements but Warriach family elders requested the FIA to exempt the aforementioned females from the inquiry. He said that the FIA had also agreed to hand over the total embezzled money in the scam. Qureshi said statements of Warraich’s family members would be recorded before an exemption was given to them.
The FIA Punjab director said that Warraich’s son Mohsin had escaped to London but would be brought back soon. He said that the FIA had already recovered Rs 1.5 billion in the aforementioned case and would received Rs 100 million on December 24 and Rs 80 million on December 31. The former state minister’s wife and two daughters were also beneficiaries in the land purchase scam in which Mohsin and the Privilege Farms Private Limited Company received Rs 2.75 billion from the NICL on account of two land sale agreements.According to investigations, around a million rupees from Rs 2.75 billion had been transferred into accounts of three women of the Warraich family. The FIA Punjab also issued a notice to Transparency International (TI) Pakistan Chairman Syed Adil Gilani to appear at the FIA Centre, Lahore on December 23.
Former NICL chairman Ayaz Khan Niazi, in his confessional statement, claimed that Gilani had quietly offered to secure him a clean chit from the Supreme Court, which was hearing a case against the insurance company if he signed a MoU that all future business contracts of NICL would be awarded to only those private parties, which would be cleared and recommended by him.The FIA Punjab director said that the FIA would leave no stone unturned in order to unearth corruption from federal departments. He said that FIA Punjab would also take stern action against employees of the federal government who were working in provincial departments and found involved in any kind of corruption.Qureshi said that the FIA was marking inquiries of lower cadre staff to their concerned departments and FIA Punjab would only deal with top guns of the federal government. He said that the FIA had started its operation against corrupt people working in various departments including Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL), WAPDA and NICL. The FIA Punjab director told journalists that the FIA would not spare its employees as well and recently they had taken action against 13 FIA Punjab officials – PT
