NAB reviews headway in cases against Sharif, Zardari

The anti-graft body chief stresses top most priority of bureau is to eliminate corruption from country

ISLAMABAD:

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Tuesday reviewed the headway in the corruption cases against former president Asif Ali Zardari and five ex-premiers including Nawaz Sharif.

According to the NAB spokesperson, the forum reviewed progress in the investigation of ongoing corruption cases against former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Shaukat Aziz, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani.

It also reviewed the corruption cases against former president Asif Zardari and former chief ministers Shehbaz Sharif and Qaim Ali Shah.

Zardari is facing four different references namely the fake bank accounts reference, Park Lane Estate Private Ltd reference, Thatta Water Supply reference and Toshakhana (gift depository) corruption reference.

He was indicted by the anti-graft court in the Toshakhanna reference on September 9 as well as on the charges of money laundering for creating benami properties through Park Lane Estate Pvt Ltd on August 10, Thatta Water Supply reference on October 5 as well as in the fake bank accounts reference.

The former president and several of his business associates are being probed as part of a 2015 case regarding fake accounts and fictitious transactions — which were initially found to have totalled Rs35 billion — conducted through 29 “benami” accounts in banks.

The national graft buster in October 2020 approved a reference against Nawaz Sharif for “illegally” purchasing 73 high-security vehicles for the security of foreign dignitaries. He is accused of favouritism and illegal use of vehicles, causing a loss of over Rs1,952 million to the national exchequer.

In the Toshakhana reference, Sharif and Zardari were accused of obtaining cars from Toshakhana by paying 15% of the price of the cars.

The NAB alleged that ex-prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani had facilitated them in this regard as he dishonestly and illegally relaxed the procedure for acceptance and disposal of gifts issued by the government.

Sharif has been declared an absconder in the Toshakhana reference.

The meeting also reviewed the progress in investigation of corruption cases against Aslam Raisani, Sanaullah Zehri, Murad Ali Shah, Ishaq Dar, Khawaja Saad Rafique, Dr Asim Hussain, Ahsan Iqbal, Tariq Fazal Chaudhry, Noorul Haq Qadri, Babar Khan Ghauri, Dr Zafar Mirza, Manzoor Wasan, Agha Siraj Durrani, Syed Khursheed Shah, Sohail Anwar Sial, Saleem Mandviwala, Sharjeel Inam Memon, Jam Khan Shoro, Adil Siddique, Waseem Akhtar, Sardar Ashiq Gopang, Barjees Tahir, Ejaz Jakhrani, Rana Sanaullah, Sabtain Khan, Aleem Khan, Sahibzada Mehmood Zaib, Sher Azam Khan, Engineer Amir Muqam,Captain Safdar, Sardar Mehtab Abbasi,Usman Saifullah, Anwar Saifullah, Asfandyar Kakar, Asim Kurd, Saadat Anwar, Rehmat Baloch,Hamza Shehbaz, Suleman Shahbaz, Hassan Nawaz, Hussain Nawaz, Ahad Cheema, Fawad Hassan Fawad, Amjad Ali Khan, Siddique Memon, Manzoor Kaka, Shahidul Islam, Uzma Adil,Saeed Ahmed Khan,Tahir Basharat Cheema,Abdul Ghani Majeed, Anwar Majeed, Hussain Lawai, Ghulam Mustafa Phal, Farkhand Iqbal, Akhtar Nawaz Ganjera and Kamran Shafi.

The meeting also reviewed advancement in the ongoing investigation against Mufti Ehsan, Ghulam Rasool Ayubi and others Modarba/ Musharka case accused, Bank of Khyber, K-Electric, NTS, closure of Roosevelt hotel, Sindh festival case, NICVD, 56 public limited companies and flour and sugar subsides scams.              

It was decided to take cases against fake housing societies to logical conclusion and utilising all available resources to nab proclaimed offenders.

“The anti-graft watchdog firmly believes in pursuing the policy of accountability for all. NAB does not have affiliation with any group, political party or individual. The only affiliation of the bureau is with the state of Pakistan. The NAB is duty bound to recover the looted amount from the culprits, besides taking mega corruption cases to logical conclusion,” the NAB chairman said.  

He stressed that the top most priority of bureau was to eliminate corruption from the country and recover the looted money.

With input from APP