Shahbaz to face assets beyond means case too

LAHORE: The Opposition Leader in the National Assembly and PML-N President Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif will be facing another case, as the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) claims to have obtained the details of his assets made beyond means.

The anti-graft body claims to have obtained the details of his properties and vehicles from 1997 to 2004 and from 2007 to 2018.

This would be the second NAB case against the PML-N president who is already in the NAB custody and facing the Ashiana-i-Iqbal Housing Scheme case.

He was arrested by the NAB at its Lahore office in connection with the Rs14 billion Ashiana-i-Iqbal Housing Scheme case.

Shahbaz is accused of ordering the cancellation of award of the contract of Ashiana-i-Iqbal to the successful bidder Chaudhry Latif and Sons, leading to award of the contract to the Lahore Casa Developers, a proxy group of Paragon City Private Limited, which resulted in the loss of approximately Rs193 million. He is also accused of directing the Punjab Land Development Company (PLDC) to assign the Ashiana-i-Iqbal project to the Lahore Development Authority (LDA), resulting in the award of contract to the Lahore Casa developers, causing the loss of Rs715m and the ultimate failure of the project.

The bureau has also accused Shahbaz of directing the PLDC to award the consultancy services of the Ashiana-i-Iqbal project to the Engineering Consultancy Services Punjab (ECSP) for Rs192m while the actual cost was supposed to be Rs35m as quoted by Nespak.

Meanwhile, the Accountability Court Judge Syed Najamul Hassan Bukhari has authorised the anti-graft body to interrogate Shahbaz in jail. Moreover, his son Hamza Shahbaz Sharif is also under interrogation by the NAB.