KABUL (Pajhwok): Seven high ranking officials of the Ministry of Education have been arrested by police for allegedly embezzling 26 million afghanis in the construction of two hostels, officials said.
Brig. Gen. Abdul Ghayor Andarabi, crimes department head at the Ministry of Interior, told a press conference here that they had obtained evidence about the detainees’ involvement in the embezzlement.
He said the accused had stolen at least 26 million afghanis from the funds for the construction of the two hostels (one for boys and another for girls) in Darul Aman locality of Kabul.
Both the buildings had similar specifications, but one was given to the contractor for 45 million afs and the second for 71 million afs, he said, adding the Ministry of Interior had been investigating the matter over the past one month to identify the logic behind the 26 million difference.
“After the assessment of documents under the supervision of an authorised prosecutor, we reached the conclusion that some people had committed corruption,” he said.
Police then arrested seven officials of the Education Ministry on corruption charges, but there were some officials who were currently not on job and police were trying to arrest them as well, he said.
He identified the detainees as the engineering department head at the Afghanistan Skills Development Project (ASDP), Eng. Parvez Sarwari, a member of the engineering department, Eng. Mohammad Zarif, ASDP procurement specialist Shahpur, procurement manager of the project, Eng. Mohammad Ajmal, the director of teacher training collages at the ministry, Eng. Abdul Haq Rashidi, admin-finance manager, Eng. Abdul Hamid Wahab, and engineering manager at Planning Department of the Education Ministry.
Separately, Ministry of Interior spokesman Seddiq Seddiqqi told a press conference that three Da Afghanistan Breshina Sherkat employees had been arrested on charges of fleecing costumers and demanding money from people under different pretexts.
The three were caught red-handed accepting 2100 afghanis in bribe from a person, he said, adding the three persons would create technical fault in electricity metre of ordinary people and would explained a so-called lengthy process to fix the problem against money.
myn/ma
