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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Sharif family to face four new cases

About Pakistanis’ assets abroad, he explained that during the last 10 years, some $15 billion were invested in real estate. He said the record of the Prime Minister House and chief minister houses was also being shared with the NAB.

By Asim Yasin & Mumtaz Alvi
November 18, 2018

ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Accountability Shahzad Akbar Saturday said the government has decided to send the four new cases of misuse of public funds by the Sharif family in the previous government to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for investigation.

Shahzad Akbar told a news conference here that the Assets Recovery Unit was referring the case of a new London property belonging to the Sharif family to the NAB. He said the rental income and ownership documents for this property from 2012 to 2016 were available, but were put away in files. 

He explained that according to these documents, the flat in London was under the name of Begum Kulsoom Nawaz, the late wife of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. Shahzad was flanked by PM’s Special Assistant Iftikhar Durrani.

Shahzad pointed out that as prime minister and a member of the National Assembly, it was Nawaz Sharif’s responsibility to declare the ownership of his dependents, including those of his spouse. He continued that this declaration could have been made in two ways; on a wealth statement that every citizen is required to submit, while declaring his/her spouse’s assets or as a member of the Parliament in the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) forms to fulfil the annual legal requirement as an MNA.

Waving a document of the Election Commission forms and wealth statement, Shahzad maintained that this property had not been shared anywhere and this made it a new case of assets beyond known sources of income.

He emphasised that further investigation of assets beyond income should be carried out by the NAB, while tax-related liability had been given to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). He made it clear that the case would be pursued by both these bodies and added that they had also asked Britain for fresh ownership documents of the concerned property.

Shahzad noted that according to the land registry, in August 2016, this property was transferred to Nawaz Sharif’s son Hassan Nawaz’s name and that the fresh date for its sale was from March 2018.

“We have asked Britain for all these documents and they might come in a week or two. We will put all of that in front of you, what the whole trail of this was and till what time this property was under the Sharif family and when they sold it and for how much,” he said.

Shahzad said the question comes up again which has remained the question in all the cases: where did these properties come from, what was their source of income, and what is their trail of money. “When you don’t declare something and get caught, the first question is where did it come from, you have to declare a source of income for it,” he said.

He acknowledged that a newspaper had broken the news of a property located in Central London, which had current value of 2.2 or 2.3 million pounds. He added that investigative journalists were his closest partners in the responsibility he had been given to him.

About the alleged misuse of plane, he said that the prime minister’s plane was misused to the tune of Rs340 million and hence this money was spent on air travels. He pointed out that Nawaz Sharif’s daughter Maryam Nawaz also used the prime minister’s plane illegally and additionally, former chief minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif also spent Rs600 million on air travel.

The special assistant said heavy funds in the head of gifts and entertainment of the Chief Minister House were also spent during the tenure of the previous government and the government is are sending the record to the NAB for investigation. He said during the years 2013-14, the increase in budget of gifts and entertainment was up to 218 percent, in 2014-15 the increase was 135 percent, in 2015-16 it was 193 percent and in 2016-17 there was increase of 256 percent.

“We wanted to know that what kind of gifts were given that were so expensive,” he said, adding that this was a misuse of authority.

Moreover, he noted that Rs275 million was spent on Nawaz Sharif’s Jati Umra residence from the national exchequer. “We are going to hand over the record of Prime Minister House from 2014 to 2018 to NAB,” he explained.

Shahzad said the government was ready for amendments in the NAB laws but would not let this anti-graft body become toothless. Moreover, he made it clear that there was no plan to create a body to monitor the NAB.

About Pakistanis’ assets abroad, he explained that during the last 10 years, some $15 billion were invested in real estate. He said the record of the Prime Minister House and chief minister houses was also being shared with the NAB.

Iftikhar Durrani said that the government was committed to follow accountability. He said that in 2016-17 the expenditure of the Prime Minister House was about Rs340 million and due to austerity campaign it was reduced to Rs110 million during this year.