LAHORE: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Saturday acquitted Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif in the Ashiana Housing scandal.
The Ashiana Housing scandal, which involved allegations of irregularities, has been a highly contentious issue. However, NAB’s report states that no concrete evidence of corruption or misuse of authority was found during their inquiry which leads the acquittal of PM, Shehbaz Sharif.
The report submitted by NAB officials in court emphasizes that the accusations against Shahbaz Sharif in the Ashiana Housing scandal could not be substantiated. The inquiry was conducted twice, and no evidence was discovered to support claims of any wrongdoing.
The NAB report further highlighted that Shahbaz Sharif did not derive any personal benefits from the Ashiana Housing project. The evidence presented indicates that public officeholders did not exploit their positions for personal gain, nor did they cause any financial losses to the government treasury.
The NAB report cleared Kamran Kiyani of any wrongdoing in account of the government treasury. According to the NAB report, Kiyani did not cause any financial loss to the government during his tenure.
Furthermore, the NAB report also acquitted Fawad Hassan Fawad from allegations of accepting bribes for awarding contracts.
The NAB report confirmed that the contract for the Ashiana Housing Scheme was awarded in accordance with the law. The report emphasized that anti-corruption laws were strictly followed during the process.
With this report in hand, the case will now proceed to the Accountability Court in Lahore. It is expected that the court will make a decision based on the evidence presented and may grant Shahbaz Sharif’s request for acquittal.
In the NAB reference, Shehbaz Sharif was accused of misusing his authority to illegally issue directives for the cancellation of the contract with regard to the housing project in 2014.
In March 2014, the former chief minister had visited the Ashiana-e-Iqbal project site and halted its bidding process, according to the reference.
The Punjab Land Development Company (PLDC) was looking after the project, but Mr Sharif after visiting the site decided to assign the project to the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) which resulted in the award of the contract to the Lahore Casa Developers (JV), causing Rs715m loss to the exchequer, the reference reads.
The NAB had arrested Shehbaz Sharif in the scam on October 5, 2018, inside its Lahore office where he had appeared after being summoned for questioning in connection with a probe into the Saaf Pani Company scam.
According to NAB, “the contract for the housing scheme was won by a construction company titled Chaudhry Latif and Sons but former Punjab chief minister Shehbaz Sharif and his aides awarded the Rs 14 billion contract to Lahore Casa Developers – a proxy group of Paragon City (Pvt) Limited, which is said to be owned by then Railways Minister Saad Rafique”.
