ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s top accountability body on Friday revealed how a former oil and gas chief allegedly involved in a multi-billion rupee scam, had escaped the country to avoid arrest.
Tauqir Sadiq, the former chairman of the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority, had fled to the UAE in 2012 after the Supreme Court declared his appointment as Ogra chief illegal.
According to the spokesperson of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the inquiry into the matter as to how Tauqir Sadiq was able to escape from Pakistan was carried out by one of the senior-most directors-general (DGs) of the bureau.
Sadiq, who is accused of being involved in the Rs82bn ($820m) Ogra embezzlement case, was brought back to Pakistan from UAE on Monday night. An accountability court in Islamabad has sent the former Ogra chief to a 14-day physical remand.
“During the interrogation, Tauqir Sadiq provided many details of his escape, including the fact that he paid Rs1,000/- as bribe to an Afghan official at Kabul airport,” said the official. Sadiq had managed to leave the country although his name was on the exit control list. A local newspaper had reported that the former Ogra chief had to bribe a border guard at Pakistan’s Torkham border with Afghanistan.
The NAB official, however, clarified that, as per the bureau’s investigation, Sadiq bribed officials at Kabul airport, and “not at Torkham, as reported in the media.” Internews
