RPP scam: Pervez Ashraf, others to be indicted on May 30

Former federal secretary Shahid Rafi is among the co-accused.

ISLAMABAD:

An accountability court on Friday decided to indict former Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf and others on May 30 for their alleged involvement in the Rental Power Projects (RPP) scam.

The court summoned the former premier and co-accused on May 30 after National Accountability Bureau (NAB) distributed the copies of the challan among all the respondents.

The former premier is charged with concealing facts in RPP case, while receiving approval for the contracts and making post-bid changes, causing a loss of $60 million to the national exchequer.

On Friday, former member finance, Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco), Chaudhry Abdul Qadeer, was produced before the court.  Earlier the court had issued his non-bailable warrants for not appearing before the court.

On March 1 this year, NAB had submitted a reference against the accused. In February last year, NAB had approved the case of Piranghaib, Multan, and Techno Engineering Services Sahuwal, Sialkot, for alleged corruption, corrupt practices and misuse of authority in awarding RPPs contracts.

The co-accused in the reference are former water and power secretary Shahid Rafi, former additional secretary Sheikh Zarrar Aslam, Pepco former managing director Tahir Basharat Cheema, former directors Malik Muhammad Razi Abbas and Wazir Ali Bhayo, Tariq Nazir, Abdul Malik Memon, and Rasool Khan Mehsud.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 24^th, 2014.