Ashiana scam: NAB references against Shehbaz, Fawad to be filed soon

ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Wednesday informed the Supreme Court (SC) that supplementary references have been prepared against Opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif and former federal secretary Fawad Hasan Fawad in Ashiana Housing case.

According to details, as the hearing went underway, the anti-corruption watchdog’s prosecutor informed the SC bench that references in Ashiana scam have been approved by Chairman NAB Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal, and the bureau will file them in coming days.

Shehbaz and Fawad are already under NAB’s custody in Ashiana Iqbal housing scheme case.

Ashiana 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 contract to Lahore Casa Developers – a proxy group of Paragon City (Pvt) Limited, which is said to be owned by Railways Minister Saad Rafique”.

As per law, it is illegal to make any agreement above Rs150 million 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,” the anti-graft body claimed.

It was due to the hired company’s incompetence that the project could not be completed in three-year duration which brought upon a loss of Rs640 million to the government, NAB officials added.