Islamabad : A mega corruption scam has hit the ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) as the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) busted gang comprising at least 16 courier companies’ including ECS staff and others individuals who allegedly made billions of rupee through “SPEEDY” attestation of the documents.
MoFA has a separate setup for attestation of the documents and its operating for decades. However , it came under the scanner of the anti corruption departments a couple of months ago when the local media reported huge corruption in MoFA’s process of attestation of the documents. The media reports had claimed that an organized network comprising ECS and some other courier companies with the connivance of the officials of the ministry was involved in huge corruption in the process of attestation of the documents.
According to a media reports, the scam of attestation of documents in MoFA involved corruption of Rs 12 billion.
The reports said the scam came into notice of top officials including Amina Baloch, then Secretary of the ministry of Foreign Affairs early this year and a departmental inquiry was also conducted by an official ranking to Director General Audit , who did submitted his report , confirming huge corruption in the process of documents attestation in May last and identified its all characters including ECS and officials of MoFA , but then Foreign secretary , Amina Baloch , did not take any action to fix up the characters of the corruption network. Instead taking action against the gang involved in corruption of billions of rupee in attestation of the documents, MoFA fixed -up DG Audit of the ministry, who had probed the matter, when the scam appeared in the local media a couple of months ago.
Taking notice of the media reports , FIA had raided ECS and other offices in Islamabad on Saturday from where the network involved in the scam was operating in connivance with the officials of the Foreign ministry to extort money for getting attested the documents and certificates.
A source told NEWSMAN that ECS is a major shareholder in the scam. The documents submitted to MOFA by ECS used to the attested by the concerned desk on top priority basis within hours whereas in other cases , the officials sitting in the windows commonly take three to four days for any case submitted for attestation. Even in some cases, the sources said , the documents attestation could take weeks. Since , the applicants need documents attested in urgency , the front men of ECS and other courier companies’ give bait to the applicants to pay SPEED money to get their documents attested in no time.
Sources said the gang of ECS and MoFA officials was extorting money for attestation of documents for the last two to three years.
An official of MoFA, who spoke to NEWSMAN on the condition of not mentioning his name, said ” The role of Foreign secretary Amina Baloch in this case is extremely dubious. One must probe as to why she hid the inquiry report for around four months and protected those who allegedly made billion through this dirty practice”.
The official also deplored the statement of the spokesman who had forcefully denied the reports of any wrongdoings in attestation of documents just a couple of days ago.
Mr Sajjad Haider , FO spokesman , had told a weekly news briefing last Thursday that the reports of mega corruption in attestation process of documents were baseless and non-verified.
Within hours after Mr Sajjad Haider ‘s clarification rather white lie , deputy prime minister , Ishaq Dar , had constituted a high level committee headed by Hamid Yaqub Shaikh , Petroleum secretary ,to probe the allegations of mega corruption in attestation of documents. The committee is yet to start its job.
Meanwhile , FIA sprang up for action in this crucial matter as it relates to millions of individuals and it issued a statement on Saturday that it was probing the matter to find the facts.
An official privy to the matter has confirmed that FIA teams were conducting raids for arrests of at least six officials of MoFA in connection with the on-going inquiry into the matter.