LAHORE April 18 (TNS): The National Accountability Bureau Lahore (NAB) on Wednesday arrested four officials for the alleged embezzlement in the Punjab Saaf Pani project.
The arrested officials were identified as Nasir Qadir, Dr Zaheerul Din, Muhammad Saleem and Muhammad Masood Akhtar.
Though the Punjab government has spent over Rs4 billion on installing 116 plants under the Saaf Pani project, the citizens have not been provided clean drinking water.
On April 14, the Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar while hearing a suo moto case had ordered the NAB to probe the alleged corruption in the project and submit a report within 15 days.
According to sources, the company has spent over Rs300 million on hiring services of foreign consultants and 116 plants costing Rs4 billion had been installed across the province but not a single drop has been made available to the citizens.
According to NAB sources, accused Nasir Qadir worked as the chief procurement officer in the company, Dr Zaheerul Din as the chief technical officer, Saleem Akhtar as the procurement and contract specialist and Masood Akhtar was working as the contractor.
According to the NAB sources, the accused ad installed the 116 water filtration plants at higher rates in Bahawalpur but mentioned false estimates in the documents.
The accused will be produced before accountability court on Thursday, the NAB sources said.
