LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) will start distribution of compensation money among the affectees of different housing scams from the next month.

NAB Lahore Director General Amjad Majeed Aulakh said this while addressing an open court hearing here on Friday.

While submitting claims, the affectees of Palm Vista Housing Society, Lahore, pleaded before the DG in the open court hearing that the society administration first sold out membership forms to the public and then looted people by selling hundreds of bogus plot files to them.

They alleged that through different marketing events the administration deceitfully lured people and sold hundreds of acres of land to them while it actually had only 206 kanals of approved land. When the buyers demanded their money back, the society administration provided cheques to them, which were later bounced.

Taking notice of the complaints, the DG ordered initiation of scrutiny process of the society’s affairs without any delay.

Addressing the affectees of Pak-Arab Housing Society, the DG lauded the tireless efforts of the NAB investigation team, saying the bureau had successfully made a recovery of Rs1.4 billion, out of total the Rs2.4bn bungling admitted by the accused persons.

“The NAB has planned across-the-board disbursement of recovered amount among all affectees,” Mr Aulakh said and added that all affectees would be equally compensated.

He asked the affectees to move courts in case of non-compliance of court orders by the accused persons.

Addressing the affectees of Bin-Alam Society, the DG maintained that NAB had confiscated all the known properties found in the accused persons’ names, adding that a reference was also in the Lahore’s trial court, in which 100 witnesses had recorded their statements so far.

In the same case, he said, the co-accused persons languished in jail for four years until the apex court admitted their bail pleas. He directed the investigation team to pace-up the process and conclude the probe.

He told the affectees of Model Housing Enclave that NAB Lahore had recovered Rs2.46bn which had been successfully returned to them, and another Rs460 million would be returned soon.

At the open court, the affectees of Al-Haram Tractors said the company owners deprived them of millions of rupees on the promise of delivering tractors to them under a five-year installment plan, but later vanished.

The DG ordered collection of their claims to start necessary proceedings against the culprits.

Published in Dawn, November 25th, 2023