Vendetta alleged: Raja Pervez passes buck on RPPs’ case

Tells SC Faisal Saleh implicated him in rental plants case to settle political scores.

ISLAMABAD:

Former water and power minister Raja Pervez Ashraf on Thursday stated before the Supreme Court that Faisal Saleh Hayat had implicated him in corruption in rental power projects (RPPs) to settle a political enmity which dates from 2002 when he had aligned himself with former president Pervez Musharraf.

“When I took charge as minister for water and power, the contracts had already been awarded.” He agreed that RPPs were producing electricity at high tariffs but said there was no alternative to overcome the power shortage in the short term.

An emotional Ashraf declared that no bidder had objected over the award of contracts for RPPs, which showed that the whole process was transparent.

Earlier, the CJP had observed that instead of protecting the consumers’ interest, everybody had safeguarded interests of the parties involved.

The former minister passed the buck on previous regimes for neglecting the power sector and international power producers (IPPs), which were introduced by the Pakistan Peoples Party in 1994.

He said that former president Musharraf had inaugurated Bhasha Dam for public consumption since he failed to initiate its construction.

“What kind of minister was your client, one who did not know what was going on in his ministry?” the CJ asked Pervez’s counsel. “Now things have changed and constables will not be arrested for an inspector general’s crime.”

Ashraf requested a division bench headed by the CJP to serve justice since Hayat had levelled baseless corruption charges against him and defamed him. “Once I was on a flight. When the pilot switched off the lights after takeoff, the passengers sitting around taunted me to at least avoid load shedding on board,” he said, making the bench laugh at his humorous submission. He said Hayat had accused him of purchasing a flat in the UK for billions of pounds which he said caused his family distress. “My wife asks for whom I bought that flat and my children want to know why I did not tell them about it, but I never bought the flat.”

The case was adjourned till Monday.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 25^th, 2011.