LAHORE: An accountability court Friday awarded 14-day physical remand of Fawad Hasan Fawad, former principal secretary to PM, to National Accountability Bureau as an accused in Ashiana-e-Iqbal Housing project scam.
The NAB officials produced Fawad before the court under strict security arrangements and pleaded with the court to grant his 15-day physical remand.
The NAB prosecution informed the court that Fawad was arrested by NAB over charges of misuse of authority, being the secretary implementation to former Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, and causing loss of billions to the national exchequer. The prosecutor further stated that Fawad got suspended a contract for construction of Ashiana-e-Iqbal housing society and awarded it a favourite company, Casa Developers on higher rate, causing losses of Rs4 billion to national exchequer.
NAB authorities said the project was initially given to M/s Chaudhry Latif & Sons for a low price of Rs1.5 billion. They said being secretary of the then Punjab chief minister, he misused his authority and caused huge loss to the national exchequer. The government, they said, had to pay Rs6 million as fine to the successful bidder due to cancellation of the contract.
The illegal actions taken by Fawad Hasan Fawad delayed the project and multiplied its cost, prosecutor added.
However, Fawad standing in the court denied all allegations of corruption levelled against him and said he had no role in getting the contract suspended. His duty was to get the orders of the Punjab CM implemented and he did his duty, he said.
Fawad said soon after assuming the charge of principal secretary, he never interfered in the affairs of the province. He said he served in Punjab till March 2013. About the Ashiana contract, he said the then chief minister had ordered an inquiry against the contract when discrepancies were found in it.
