Former PM Gilani appears before court in corruption reference

Gillani and others are named in a NAB reference accusing them of misuse of authority

ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was among the accused who appeared before an accountability court on Wednesday to face a National Accountability Bureau (NAB) reference, accusing them of misuse of authority.

In his maiden appearance, the former PM requested the court to provide him copies of the reference and other material as he was not aware of the charges that NAB has levelled against him.

He also requested the court to grant him permanent exemption from personal appearance due to the security threats. Besides, he said, he was appearing in four other cases before a court in Karachi.



The Accountability Court Judge Arshad Malik supplied copies of the reference and other material to Gilani and other accused standing trial and issued notice to NAB to argue on the exemption application. Also, the court directed Gilani to submit surety of Rs1million for ensuring his presence on the next date.

The court directed the authorities to present Midas CEO Inam Akbar, one of the suspects, before the court on the next date of hearing. However, the judge was told that Akbar is in a jail in Karachi.

On Sept 9, the court formally started proceedings and issued summons to Gilani and others.

Earlier, NAB Rawalpindi filed a reference against Gilani, the Ministry of Information Technology former secretary Farooq Awan, the Universal Services Fund (USF) former CEO Riaz Asher Siddiqui, the USF former secretary Hasan Sheikh, Midas CEO Akbar, and former personal assistant to Pro IT Muhammad Hanif for “misuse of authority in illegal publicity campaign through M/s Midas Pvt Ltd and attempt to cause loss to the national exchequer”.

According to NAB, during the 26th USF board meeting held on December 28, 2011, accused Yousuf Raza Gilani (then prime minister), also being minister of IT and chairman of the USF board, directed to run a media campaign for highlighting achievements of the USF.

Farooq Awan, the former secretary of the IT Ministry, misused his authority in running the illegal publicity campaign through M/s Midas Pvt Ltd in violations of rules and attempts to cause loss to the national exchequer.

Midas CEO violated the Press Information Department (PID) instructions and prescribed procedures regarding media campaigns and undertook the entire electronic media campaign without getting any written orders (release order) either from the IT Ministry or from the USF.



“The media campaign was launched by M/s Midas (Private) Limited which was not on the panel of the USF neither before nor afterwards,” the NAB handout said. However, it was manipulated by the accused USF CEO Riaz Asher Siddiqui to place it on the panel with the connivance of government officials to legitimise the media campaign and to facilitate payment of Rs128 million.

“There was no competition held for formally awarding the media campaign, which is totally against the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules and policy guidelines issued by the Ministry of Information Broadcasting and PID,” it said.

The handout said the accused with the connivance of each other processed for an ex-post facto approval by the board to legitimise the payment to M/s Midas (Private) Limited and to cause loss to the kitty to the tune of approximately Rs128 million.

“However, due to timely cognisance by NAB, illegal payment was stopped to M/s Midas,” it said.