Six CDA officers booked over corruption

KARACHI: Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Saturday booked six Capital Development Authority (CDA) officers over corruption charges, ARY News reported.

According to sources, the FBR has registered a First Information Report (FIR) against the six accused CDA officers who are allegedly involved in altering the layout plan for Pakistan Medical Housing Society in Lahore.

The officers booked in the case are CDA Director Asadullah, Ghulam Sarwar Sindhu, Zafar Iqbal, Ashiq Ali Ghori, Liaquat Mohiuddin Qadri and Abdul Haq Brohi.

The former director Human Resource (HR) Fayyaz Ahmed Watto submitted the inquiry report after with the case was registered.

Moreover, the arrests of the officers has not been made yet while the authorities are further investigating the case.

It is pertinent to mention here that last month Transparency International released a report in which Pakistan was ranked 140 out of 180 in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) in 2022.

According to details, the CPI ranks 180 countries and territories around the world by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, scoring on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).

Pakistan’s score dropped to 27 from 28 last year while its rank remained unchanged. In 2021, the country slipped 16 places to 140 from 124 out of 180 countries.

In the report, Transparency International said that the country has continued its statistically significant downward trend, this year hitting its lowest score since 2012 at just 27 points amidst ongoing political turmoil.

“In 2018, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan took the reins of the country promising to combat widespread corruption and promote reforms on the socio-economic fronts but no significant improvement was made,” said the watchdog.