GUJRAT: The Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) on Tuesday conducted raids at the houses of two former deputy mayors of the Gujranwala Municipal Corporation (GMC), including Salman Khalid alias Pomi Butt who is also a president of city PML-N chapter, and Rana Maqsood.

The raids were conducted in a case registered against them for not auctioning the contract of parking fee collection at Alhameed building in front of old railway station, causing a loss of Rs8.3 million whereas the parking stand was illegally handed over to the Gujranwala Cloth Market Board which collected fee in the fiscal year 2018-19.

Former GMC mayor Sarwat Ikram Sheikh, also belonging to the PML-N, and some senior officials of the corporation had also been nominated accused in the case lodged on Dec 28, 2018.

However, it is learnt that the former mayor has been on bail before arrest till Sept 10.

Rae Naeemullah Bhatti, ACE regional director, told Dawn that on the directions of Punjab ACE DG Gohar Nafees, a team had conducted raids on the houses of former deputy mayors but both were not present.

He said the two had signed an illegal agreement with the cloth market board for collection of parking fee and cancelled a corporation contract for fee collection in 2017, causing a loss of Rs8.3 million to the exchequer.

An official source said initially the case was lodged against Shahzad Ahmed Khokhar, who was the superintendent of regulations in the MC, while the rest were nominated during the course of investigation.

Asked why the action had been taken so late, he said that investigation into the case had been going on since the registration of the case.

Published in Dawn, September 2nd, 2020