NAB clears PM in Ashiana case

Bureau says no public officeholder received any benefits of any kind from the contract

LAHORE:

The country’s top accountability watchdog has declared Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif "innocent" in a reference that the graft buster filed in an accountability court in 2018 against Shehbaz’s alleged misuse of authority in executing a low cost housing scheme during his stint as Punjab chief minister.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has also found “no evidence” of corruption in the contract of the scheme—the Ashiana-e-Iqbal Housing Society—launched in 2010 in Lahore.

According to a report issued by NAB, Shehbaz Sharif did not get any financial benefit from the project which also did not cause any loss to the national kitty. “It is proved beyond any doubt that the treasury didn't suffer any loss,” the report said.

 “No evidence of misuse of powers was found against Shahbaz Sharif,” it added.

The NAB report said no aspect of malice was proven against the prime minister.

The report claimed that Kamran Kayani, a brother of former army chief General (retd) Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, also did not cause any damage to the treasury.
It found that Fawad Hasan Fawad, who at the time served as the secretary implementation to then-Punjab chief minister Shehbaz, took no bribe to award the contract.

It said PM Shehbaz had sent the Ashiana case to the anti-corruption watchdog as per the law. “The accountability court should decide on Shehbaz Sharif's plea for acquittal according to the law,” the report stated.

This is the second major NAB case against the prime minister in which he has been declared innocent. Earlier this month, the anti-graft watchdog declared Prime Minister Shehbaz, his son Hamza Shehbaz and others “innocent” in a Rs7 billion reference that accused the Shehbaz family of amassing assets beyond their known sources of income and money laundering.

When launched, the Ashiana-e-Iqbal Housing Scheme was touted as a low-cost housing scheme. However, soon accusations of irregularity started to pop up as inexplicable delays in ballots and the allotment of completed units began to crop up.

The country’s top accountability watchdog on Oct 5, 2018 arrested Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President and former Punjab chief minister Shehbaz Sharif over his alleged involvement in the multi-billion rupees housing scam.

In a statement issued by NAB after Shahbaz’s arrest in December 2018, it had claimed that it had sufficient evidence to prove the involvement of the former CM in commission of offences as defined under section 9(a) and Schedule of the NAB 1999.

It said that Shehbaz, as Punjab CM illegally assumed powers of the Punjab Land Development Company’s (PLDC) Board of Directors.

“[He] misused his authority and acted in connivance with accused Fawad Hassan Fawad, then the secretary implementation to CM Punjab, and others and illegally got cancelled a contract awarded to M/s Chaudhry Latif and Sons for infrastructure development of Ashiana-e-Iqbal Housing Project,” it said.

According to NAB, the said award of contract was declared lawful, as per the PPRA Rules, by a high-powered committee so there was no justification to cancel it. However, it was done to give illegal favour to a favourite contractor who had paid illegal gratification for the same.

“Accused as CM Punjab in a meeting dated October 21, 2014, unlawfully directed [the] PLDC to entrust the project of Ashiana-e-Iqbal Punjab to [the] Lahore Development Authority (LDA).

“This decision was illegal and malafide as the PLDC was the company which was established for undertaking such housing projects,” said the NAB statement.
It said the decisions for the PLDC were to be taken by its board of directors (BOD) independently as per the Corporate Governance Rules 2013 and Companies Ordinance 1984 (now Companies Act 2017).

“This act on the part of accused Shehbaz Sharif not only negated the very objective of creation of [the] PLDC but also caused huge loss to state exchequer,” NAB had then claimed.