Evidence of Sharif family’s corruption found: Shahzad Akbar

ISLAMABAD: Adviser to the Prime Minister on Accountability Shahzad Akbar has said evidence of corruption of the Sharif family has been found which will be made public within a few days.

Addressing a press conference along with Minister for Communication Murad Saeed here on Monday, Shahzad Akbar said the judiciary should probe the authenticity of the video allegedly involving a judge of the accountability court purportedly admitting lack of evidence against Nawaz Sharif in the Al Azizia Steel Mills case. Shahzad Akbar said it would be better that the either the Supreme Court or Islamabad High Court probe authenticity of video and the claims being made by the opposition leaders in this connection, saying the designs behind the video’s release would also be known as a result of the judicial probe.

Shahzad Akbar said the opposition would object if the government initiates a probe into the controversial video, therefore, it has been decided that the investigation should be carried out by a judicial forum. He said a particular group of politicians, who hail from different political parties but have no common ideology, are coming up with a common ideology. “Some of them hail from right hand parties, others from left hand having no common ideology,” he said, adding the only common ideology between them is corruption and robbing the national exchequer of which the incumbent government has also been talking about.

Shahzad Akbar, while referring to threats given to officials of the NAB, said the government would not bow to any pressure tactics. “Reports have surfaced that Shahbaz Sharif threatened the NAB officials of dire consequences saying they will soon return to power and will see everybody questioning him,” he said.

Shahzad Akbar questioned who had attacked the judiciaryn the past, and said judges of the Supreme Court of Pakistan had declared these same people members of a 'Sicilian mafia' in a previous verdict. He pointed out that it is just the beginning of the PTI government and 90 percent cases against the corrupt mafia are those which were already prepared. “Now the institutions like FIA, NAB and FIA are independent and corruption cases are coming up,” he said.

Murad Saeed said the process of accountability would move ahead as the government has decided to refer the illegal award of contract of horticulture work to the brother of then minister for planning Ahsan Iqbal to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). Murad Saeed recalled as to how the leaders of the PPP and PML-N used to level allegations against each other, but then they kept silence for the sake of democracy. “They also signed Charter of Dacoity only to give protection to each other’s looted money,” he said. Murad Saeed said Prime Minister Imran Khan has also been saying leaders of the two parties have the common agenda as to how they should loot the national exchequer and make properties outside the countries. He said the government has already referred case of Rs50 billion loss caused by Ahsan Iqbal to national exchequer due to illegal award of highways and motorways projects of the National Highway Authority to the NAB. “Let us see when Ahsan Iqbal is summoned by the NAB,” he said, adding Ahsan Iqbal in response to allegations has stated that he awarded contracts on directives of then prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

He said then chief minister Shahbaz Sharif through a notification in 2008 appointed Mustafa Iqbal, brother of Ahsan Iqbal, as chairman of the Punjab Horticultural Task Force which awarded contracts of horticulture work of metro bus projects in Islamabad, Lahore and Multan, University of Gujrat and surroundings of the Liberty Market, questioning whether the PPRA Rules were followed in award of those contracts. Referring to minutes of a meeting of the task force, the minister said Shahbaz Sharif directed the task force to award contracts of horticulture work of five projects to the private firm of Mustafa Iqbal. “I challenge Shahbaz Sharif, Ahsan Iqbal and Mustafa Iqbal to deny documents having minutes of the meeting and notification, the copies of which I am giving to media today,” he said.