The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Wednesday informed the Supreme Court (SC) that supplementary references had been prepared against Shehbaz Sharif and former federal secretary Fawad Hasan Fawad in Ashiana Housing case.
During the hearing, the NAB representative informed the SC bench that references in Ashiana scam had been approved by NAB chairman Justice (r) Javed Iqbal. The court was told that the bureau would file the references in the next few days.
Shehbaz and Fawad are already under NAB’s custody in Ashiana Iqbal housing scheme case. 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 (bn) contract to Lahore Casa Developers, which was a proxy group of Paragon City (Pvt) Limited, which is allegedly owned by former Railways minister Khwaja Saad Rafique.
As per law, it is illegal to make any agreement above Rs150 million (m) with a single company.”Fawad Hasan Fawad, who was implementation secretary to the chief minister Punjab Shehbaz Sharif at the time, leveled charges of wrongdoings against Chaudhry Latif and Sons in order for the contract to be awarded to Casa Developers,” claimed NAB. It was because of the incompetence of the chosen company that the project was not finished in the three-year timeframe and that brought upon a loss of Rs 640 m to the government, claimed NAB.
Published in Daily Times, December 20th2018.
