Paragon housing scam: Saad Rafique denies ownership of society

LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Thursday grilled former federal minister for railways Khawaja Saad Rafique regarding ownership of the Paragon Housing Society.

He appeared before a combined investigation team (CIT) at the NAB Complex in Thokar Niaz Beg and remained there for over an hour.

An official told The Express Tribune that Rafique had denied the ownership or holding shares in the housing society.

The minister told the investigators that he had already submitted an affidavit before the apex court in this regard, he said.

The minister admitted that he had a few houses and land in the society but not a share-holder, the official said.

However, NAB believed that Rafique had considerable shares in the society and was trying to establish a link to proceed further.



This was second appearance of the minister before the investigation team.

The officer told The Express Tribune that the NAB investigators were analysing records, relevant documents and the questioner as well as the documents submitted by the accused persons before deciding whether to take the investigation to the next level or recede it.

Meanwhile, the bureau summoned former Punjab health minister Khawaja Salman Rafique on Friday (today) for questioning in the scam.

Also, despite issuing repeated summons, Paragon City Director Nadeem Zia had failed to appear before NAB, prompting it to issue an open notice that stated that the department was investigating the allegations of embezzlement in the Ashiana Iqbal Housing society.

NAB had launched an investigation into the scam after dozens of victims staged protests and held a press conference at the Lahore Press Club against the housing society’s fraud.

The bureau had arrested former LDA director general Ahad Khan Cheema and others over allegations of corruption in Ashiana Iqbal Housing Society scam.



During investigations, it was revealed that Cheema had misused his authority and received huge sums of money in return for awarding the contract of the project to Casa Developers.

The amount was paid from the account of the Paragon Housing Society.

“NAB will further explore this angle of the probe,” the official said.