NAB presents list of 1,800 defaulters to PAC

ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau has submitted a list of 1,800 defaulters and unauthorised users of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government helicopter against rules, including former prime minister and Chairman PTI Imran Khan, ex-federal ministers, PTI leaders, media persons and anchors, which caused over PKR 6.3 billion loss to the national exchequer. The Public Accounts Committee later directed NAB to make recovery from all unauthorised users of the KPK government helicopter.

The Public Accounts Committee held its meeting under Chairman Noor Alam Khan on Thursday in which the audit paras related to the Aviation Division for the financial year 2019-20 were examined.

Chairman PAC Noor Alam Khan also announced to return his bulletproof vehicle to federal government and said he had life threats from provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. “I returned the bulletproof vehicle with thanks to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif,” he said. “I did not need it. If there is to be austerity in government departments, then eliminate the culture of bulletproof vehicles.”

The NAB presented a list containing the names of defaulters including political leaders, important personalities and other persons in the helicopter case. The list includes former prime minister Imran Khan, former speaker National Assembly Asad Qaisar, former federal minister Ali Amin Khan Gandapur, provincial minister Amjad Khan Afridi, Aun Chaudhry, Faisal Javed, Reham Khan, Shehryar Afridi, Abrarul Haq, Dawar Kundi and others.

According to the list provided by the NAB and read out by Chairman PAC Noor Alam Khan, Imran Khan travelled 137 times on the official helicopter, the cost of which according to the official rate was PKR 55.5 million and according to the commercial rate PKR 66.9 million.

Former PTI Secretary General Jahangir Tareen and Member National Assembly Khawaja Asif are also included in the list of those using the official helicopter of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government.

According to the list, apart from Imran Khan, former speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser, PTI leader Ali Amin Gandapur, provincial minister Ishtiaq Armard, former senior provincial minister Sirajul Haq are among those who did not pay for the use of helicopter. The names of PTI leader Naeemul Haq, Imran Khan’s ex-wife Reham Khan, former provincial minister Shah Farman, provincial minister Shahram Tarakai, PTI leaders Shafqat Mehmood, Zulfi Bukhari and Shehryar Afridi are also included. The list stated that Amin Aslam used the helicopter 10 times, journalist Arshad Sharif twice, Ayaz Ahmed twice, Hasan Khan twice, Tehreek-e-Insaf leader Iftikhar Durrani nine times and TV anchor Imran Riaz five times.

Anchors Arshad Sharif, Fareeha Idris and Dr. Shahid Masood are among the journalists who travelled in the government helicopter while former federal minister Shafqat Mehmood also used the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa helicopter twice.

Shahid Ahmad, a journalist belonging to a private TV channel, also used the official helicopter twice and former adviser Zulfi Bukhari used it seven times.

The official helicopter was also used by leaders belonging to Tehreek-e-Insaf and the staff of top officials of the province. The list includes several former members of the National and Provincial Assembly, who used the official helicopter of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa against the rules.

According to the documents presented in the PAC, the inquiry was conducted by NAB Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the executive board of NAB referred the case to the provincial government of KP government for recovery of dues from defaulters but no action has been taken in this regard yet.

The Public Accounts Committee sent the list of defaulters to the Election Commission of Pakistan. A total of 128 names were presented in the PAC meeting while the names of several others who used the helicopter were not released.

In total, unauthorised persons used the government helicopter of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 577 times and according to the government rate, more than PKR 5.875 billion rupees were spent on it. According to commercial calculation, more than PKR 6.17 billion loss was caused to the national treasury.

The Public Accounts Committee has directed immediate recovery from the defaulters and the Election Commission has been directed to ensure immediate recovery from defaulters participating in the by-elections. | Chairman PAC Noor Alam Khan said that some people are now using helicopters in Punjab. He directed that a list of those using helicopters from Sindh should also be prepared.