A Member Committee, Khwaja Asif, drew the attention of PAC towards the allocation of LPG quotas to retired military officers and former chairmen NAB. He named former Governor Punjab Khalid Maqbool, Lieutenant General (Retd) Muneer Hafeez, Saeeduz Zafar, Lieutenant General (Retd) Moeenuddin Haider, who were LPG quota beneficiaries.
Asif said that Khalid Maqbool was running a company with name 'Gas Natural' and taken a loan of Rs 2 billion from the Bank of Punjab. He accused that retired army officers got allocated the LPG quota on the names of their wives. He urged if civilians could be taken to task, why not retired army generals, who had been given special treatment in corruption cases. He said politicians such as Minister for Defence Naveed Qamar, Minister for Water and Power Ahmed Mukhtar and he himself faced NAB prosecution in the past. "Why are military generals exempted from NAB prosecution?" he asked.
Chairman NAB Admiral Fasih Bokhari said that serving military personnel were exempted from NAB prosecution. In case of NLC and NFC, the Bureau was working with the GHQ. However, after retirement, NAB could prosecute anyone involved in mismanagement. "Even (members of) the judiciary could be prosecuted under the NAB law," he said in reply to a question.
Briefing parliamentarians, a NAB official said that since 2000, NAB had recovered Rs 246 billion. Of the total, Rs 21 billion was returned in plea bargain, whereas Rs 110 billion was recovered from bank loan defaulters reported by the State Bank. NAB categorically denied receiving "even a single penny" in reward against recoveries, but received an ex-gratia of Rs 767 million till date. They added that Rs 65 million and Rs 25 million was received in last two years respectively by 2000 employees of NAB as ex gratia.
The parliamentarian also grilled NAB for receiving donations from PTCL, Pakistan Steel Mills and other private companies to run public awareness campaigns on anti-corruption day. Zahid Hamid urged that it did not make any sense that they were taking donation from Pakistan Steel Mills to run anti-corruption media campaigns against people involved in a lot of corruption cases.
Members PAC asked the Chairman NAB to cancel the deal of Royal Palm Club, Lahore, and re-tender its land. However, the Chairman refused to give such a ruling on the issue. Khwaja Asif criticised the agreement with retired generals who were involved in the scam and said that the club's management had agreed to give Rs 16 billion to the Railways for an additional 39-year lease.
A federal audit carried out in 2007 found that the government had lost Rs 10 billion by leasing out 103 acres to the Royal Palm Golf Club built in early 2000 on Railway land in Lahore. The PAC was told that the Supreme Court had reserved its judgement in a case against Royal Palm Golf Club for the past 15 months. As judges of the bench, which had reserved the ruling, had retired, therefore, the case would be reheard.
Chairman NAB assured the committee following the directives of Supreme Court of Pakistan that he would investigate the matter within two months. Reviewing the audit reports of Ministry of Production, Secretary Gul Mohammad Rind informed the committee that a plan was submitted to the Ministry of Finance to buy back the shares of Pakistan Engineering Company (Peco), which was sold at low rates to private parties, including Arif Habib. Shares of PECO valued more than Rs 3 billion were sold to some influential personalities and groups at the rate of Rs 80 million only. He further said that matter was pending with NAB for investigation, adding that the inquiry report held that National Investment Trust's (NIT) former chairman, Tariq Iqbal, and three other persons were responsible for the scam.
He admitted that NIT sold out 62 percent shares without approval of Ministry of Finance and Privatisation Commission. It was against the decisions of Cabinet, which directed that the government would be major shares holders when these would be put on sale. Secretary further said that they did not receive bail out package announced by Prime Minister for capacity building for Pakistan Steel Mills Corporation (PSM). He said the plan submitted to the Ministry of Finance by management of the PSM assured that PSM enhanced its capacity from 15 to 50 percent in one year.