Murad accuses Ahsan of Rs70b corruption

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Communications Murad Saeed has accused former federal planning and development minister Ahsan Iqbal of receiving up to Rs70 billion commission in the Multan-Sukkur motorway project.

Talking to journalists, the minister said Ahsan Iqbal, frontman Javed Sadiq and the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif are involved in the scam.

He urged the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to take action against the corrupt immediately.

“This is just the first case in many to come,” Murad Saeed said.

“I will give details of transfer of funds to Larkana, which took place during the Pakistan People’s Party tenure,” he said. On Pakistan PTI leader Aleem Khan’s arrest by the National Accountability Bureau, the minister said, “Aleem did not say ‘why was I ousted’ (mujhe kyun nikala).”

“The PML-N finalised major projects for commission through their frontman Sadiq and in the Multan-Sukkur Motorway project, the national exchequer suffered a loss of Rs70 billion,” the minister alleged. He further alleged that Ahsan Iqbal and Sadiq, back in 2013, inked the contract to benefit an international firm-China Estate Company.

“Sadiq was made the company director in order to obtain the contract in the bidding process. Ahsan Iqbal signed the contract on behalf of the prime minister,” he alleged.

In response through a video statement, Ahsan Iqbal said Murad Saeed’s needless press conference is another dangerous effort to make the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project controversial.

Expressing grave concern and disappointment, Ahsan Iqbal said that in the past, Prime Minister Imran Khan too jeopardised the entire flagship project initiative with his irresponsible and misinformed statements. Ahsan warned the PTI

government not to spew venom against the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project, urging it to stop making the corridor project controversial with their grossly miscalculated assumptions.

“This outburst is a reaction of the government’s incapacity and failure to carry out the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor projects. Instead of taking the criticism positively, pulling up their socks and getting to work on the projects, the intolerant and inept PTI government has started attacking the CPEC project itself with their baseless propaganda,” he said, adding, “The naive PTI government doesn’t even know that the monitoring of all CPEC projects was done by independent experts from both China and Pakistan.” Ahsan Iqbal said he would soon share the facts to rebut the false PTI propaganda against China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

This, he said, would expose to the people of Pakistan, the real enemy of the state who “is defiling CPEC” just to cover up their gross incompetence.