Pakistan: Over 10 Metropolitan Corporation Lahore officials booked in corruption case

Lahore [Pakistan], July 27 (ANI): The Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) booked over ten officials, as well as, contractors of the Metropolitan Corporation Lahore (MCL) in a mega corruption scam of over Rs 1 billion on Wednesday, according to Dawn.  
According to the ACE, in 2021, the MCL officers, along with the contractors spent Rs 520 million on cattle markets. Additionally, in 2022, the cost of setting up cattle markets surged to Rs 1.7 billion, Dawn reported. “Later, the MCL employees colluded with the contractors and made payments of millions of rupees by creating fake records and bills," ACE said. 
Moreover, the ACE filed an FIR against MCL employees - Nadeem Tahir, Sidra Zafar, Qaiser Hanif, Faisal, Yusuf Sindhu and Muhammad Zubair – and contractors Malik Rashid, Malik Arshad, Zohaib, Malik Tanveer, Malik Shahbaz Zeeshan and others with no arrest, reported Dawn. 
Furthermore, the ACE Faisalabad filed a case against the former Chairman of Faisalabad Development Authority Mian Waris Aziz and Director General Zahid Ikram and other officers on Wednesday involved in the mega corruption scandal in the approval of the Faisalabad Master Plan, reported Dawn. 
According to the ACE spokesperson, Aziz and Ikram caused a loss of billion of rupees to the national exchequer and also took millions of rupees in bribes to show the agricultural area to brown, and the brown area to commercial, it said and added the master plan was altered by taking bribes from people. 
The spokesperson said that the bribes taken by the accused were in order to illegally convert the agricultural land into commercial. 
Zahid Ikram fled his office when the ACE conducted a raid at the MDA office. (ANI)