KARACHI: An accountability court on Wednesday convicted seven former government officials and private persons, including the former chairman of the Benazir Housing Cell, of misappropriating around Rs240 million from the Sindh government-funded low-cost housing scheme.

The convicts — including Manzar Abbas, the then chairman of the Benazir Housing Cell, Agha Zawar and Ashiq Ali Shaikh, the then deputy directors, Chaudhry Ashraf, the then secretary of the Fiza Social Welfare Organisation along with others — were found guilty of misusing their official authority and indulging in corruption and corrupt practices.

On Wednesday, the acc­oun­tability court-IV judge, Fareed Anwar Qazi, pronounced his judgement, which was reserved earlier after recording evidence and final arguments from both sides.

The judge mentioned in the judgment that the prosecution had successfully established the allegations against the accused without a shadow of a doubt.

The judge awarded seven-year imprisonment to the main convicts Manzar Abbas, Agha Zawar, Ashiq Ali Shaikh, Chaudhry Ashraf and another.

They were also ordered to pay a fine of Rs15m each. Furthermore, the judge sentenced Ghulam Mohiuddin and Agha Zubair to five-year imprisonment. They were also ordered to pay Rs6m each.

The case against two alleged absconding accomplices, Mohammad Raza Khokhar, the chief executive officer of the non-government organisation and a former section officer of the National Assembly, and his wife Rukhsana Abbas, has been kept dormant till their arrest or surrender.

The special public prosecutor argued that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had arrested main accused Manzar Abbas along with some other officials and private persons in 2015.

Later, they were booked in six corruption references filed in an accountability court. The references claimed that the accused were involved in misappropriation of over Rs365m from funds set aside for the low-cost housing scheme in Sindh.

It was argued that the Sindh government had launched the low-cost housing scheme in six districts — Larkana, Kashmore, Ghotki, Sanghar, Tharparkar and Khairpur — to build 2,400 houses for low-income groups. However, it added that the then chairman of the BHC along with others misappropriated the funds.

The prosecution further mentioned that the accused had issued fake calculation for the issuance of illegal cheques to M/s Fiza Social Welfare Organisation against which funds were illegally released and misappropriated.

Special public prosecutor argued that the accused Mohammad Raza Khokhar was the then chief executive officer of the NGO, which was awarded contracts by the provincial government to build houses for the people of low-income groups.

However, on the ground, less than half of the 2,400 houses were built, and poor quality material was used in the construction of the houses. The same were not safe for people to live in.

On the other hand, the defence counsel for the accused denied the allegations and contended that the accused were innocent, and the federal anti-graft watchdog implicated them in the case with mala fide intentions for ulterior motives.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2019