NAB asks Railways to submit inquiry report

ISLAMABAD – The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has asked the Pakistan Railways to submit an inquiry report about 22 tons of missing coal.

According to documents available with The Nation, NAB Deputy Chairman and President of Prevention Committee on Pakistan Railways Imtiaz Tajwar chaired a meeting last month in this regard. The meeting, which took up the incident of loss of 22 tons of coal from a train going from Karachi to Sahiwal, was also attended by Pakistan Railway officials.

According to the documents, Director General Operations Pakistan Railway had informed the meeting that no theft had occurred and rather it was a case of negligence as the flaps were not properly closed due to which, coal fell out of the carriages while being transported. He had also told the meeting that an inquiry was in progress and soon a report will be submitted in this regard.

The Nab deputy chairman had expressed grave concern over the issue and suggested for appropriate measures to avoid such incidents in the future.

According to media reports, the 22 tons of coal for the 1,320 Megawatts Sahiwal power plant went missing from the train during night.

According to the documents, the NAB official had also sought details of (related claims) of freights of the last 10 years, the head wise breakdown of commercial revenues from 2005 and onward and a draft agreement between the Pakistan Railway and the consignee for bulk transportation.

He had asked also asked the railway officials to submit the details of the railway’s capability to meet the requirement under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the status of railway workshops/locomotive factories, its asset management system, comparison of Pakistan Railways with neighbouring countries, right sizing/over-sizing of staff and status of current employees.

Meanwhile, NAB Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry said that the bureau was committed to working with absolute professionalism, transparency to eradicate corruption as a national duty.

He gave these remarks while chairing a fortnightly meeting to review the latest progress on NAB’s Monitoring and Evaluation System (MES) at NAB Headquarters.

During the meeting, Advisor to Chairman on Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) gave a presentation regarding the latest progress on the working of the MES.

He said that the NAB has developed an effective MES to cater to the needs of all concerned with salient features of maintenance of data at each stage including complaint entry, complaint verification, inquiry, investigation, prosecution stage and record proceedings of meetings including case brief and decisions

Source: The Nation