The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in Pakistan says irregularities and corruption have been uncovered in the trillions of rupees worth of gold, silver and copper in the Rekodak project in Balochistan province.
According to a NAB Balochistan spokesperson, a reference has been filed in the Quetta Accountability Court on corruption charges and a total of 26 people have been nominated.
A statement issued by the NAB's Quetta office on Wednesday described it as the most complex and biggest case in the history of the NAB.
According to the spokesperson, the NAB investigation team, after scrutinizing the 30-year records of various departments, succeeded in tracing the culprits who caused trillions of rupees to the national exchequer.
It may be recalled that an international arbitration tribunal had imposed a hefty fine of میں 6 billion on Pakistan in July 2019 for canceling the lease of a joint Australian-Chilean mining company for the project but Pakistan later stayed the order till May 2021. ۔
According to the NAB spokesperson, a Chaghi Hills Exploration Joint Venture Agreement was signed between the Balochistan Development Authority and an Australian company called Broken Hills Proprietary in 1993 in which the Australian company was illegally benefited by the Balochistan government, especially Balochistan Development Authority officials. ۔
According to the NAB, the Balochistan Mining Concession Rules were illegally amended to further strengthen the terms of the agreement. Billions of rupees in financial benefits by repeatedly introducing a new company called Tethyan Copper Company through illegal sub-agreements. While irregularities were also found in the allotment of land and other matters by the officers of the Finance Department and the accused also confessed to taking financial benefits in this regard.
The NAB spokesperson further said that the examination of records and the statements of witnesses revealed that representatives of a foreign company, namely TCC, were also found to be involved in bribing government employees and illegally gaining interests. Therefore, NAB has also nominated non-company officials abroad in the reference. The overseas suspects were repeatedly summoned but did not appear.
The NAB did not disclose the names of the accused, but Urdu News has learned that a former governor who was in office during Pervez Musharraf's tenure and several former secretaries of various departments at the level of Balochistan are also involved in various departments of the foreign company. Seven working foreign officers have also been charged with irregularities and corruption.
It should be noted that Rekodak is located on the Tetian geological strip in Nokandi area of Chaghi district of Balochistan near the Iran-Afghanistan border. It is considered to be the largest deposit of gold, silver and copper in Pakistan and is also one of the largest underground deposits in the world.
Allegations of corruption were made in the Rekodak agreement before, which led to the agreement being challenged in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. A Supreme Court bench headed by former Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had annulled the agreement, which led the company to approach the International Arbitration Tribunal International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes.
