MULTAN: An accountability court on Wednesday acquitted all the eight accused officers of the Punjab Mass Transit Authority (PMTA) and officials of a consultant company for the Multan Metro Bus Project in a case of false assessment of passengers which caused a loss of billions to the national exchequer.

In its reference, the National Accountability Bureau alleged that before the launch of the project assessment of passengers who would travel on various routes of the bus services was done by the company and officers of authority.

It alleged that over Rs30 billion were spent on the project with the claim that daily 70,000 to 90,000 passengers would travel by bus on a daily basis but the number of travelers was not more than 35,000. “They prepared a fake report which caused losses to the national exchequer.”

The counsel of the accused informed the court that the report was prepared under an assessment as it was impossible to give the exact figure of the passengers.

They said earlier the length of the route was 36 km and assessment was done accordingly but later on the length of the route was reduced to 18 km. Even then, the number of travelers was almost equal to the assessed figure.

The court after hearing both parties acquitted the accused, including then PMTA Director General Sibtain Fazal-e-Halim, General Manager Operations Muhammad Uzair Shah, Manager Operations Muhammad Imran Khan, and five officials of the Osmani Consultant Company

One of the company officials, Farhan Haidar, was arrested by the NAB and was in jail while others were on bail.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2020