LAHORE – National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has made major developmentin the Asiana Housing Scheme case.
NAB on Friday arrested two brothers of Paragon city Chief Executive Officer(CEO) Nadeem Zia.
The anti-graft watchdog has arrested Muneer Zia and Umar Zia after theinvestigation in the land scam was extended, local media reported.
Umar Zia is a member of the Paragon’s board of directors, while Munir Ziais a partner of Shahid Shafiq, who is CEO of Bismillah EngineeringServices, allegedly involved in taking the contract of Ashiana HousingScheme on fake documents inflicting a damage on national exchequer.
The accountability watchdog had launched an investigation against theofficials of the Punjab Land Development Company (PLDC), higher-ups ofLahore Casa Developers and officers of the Lahore Development Authority(LDA) after the government cancelled the award of the Ashiana-e-Iqbalhousing scheme contract to the successful bidder M/S Chaudhry Latif andSons.
The award was then given to M/S Lahore Casa Developers (JV) which is aproxy group of M/S Paragon City (Pvt) Limited (believed to be developed byRailways Minister Saad Rafique) hence causing a loss of millions of rupeesto the exchequer, according to the graft-buster.
Shafiq’s company was part of the joint venture Lahore Casa Developers thatNAB has said was ineligible to receive the contract worth Rs14 billion andhe was arrested on the identification of Ahad Cheema.
On Feb 21, the NAB has arrested former director-general of LDA Ahad Cheemafollowing the charges of illegally allotting 32 kanal land in AshianaHousing Scheme.