‘Niazi-NAB nexus’ behind assets freeze: Shahbaz

LONDON: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shahbaz Sharif alleged on Wednesday his assets were frozen “due to an alliance between Prime Minister Imran Khan and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB)”.

“I have always said that an alliance between Imran Niazi and NAB exists,” he said. “However, their alliance failed yet again.” Sharif said he had been summoned to court to attend a hearing of clean drinking water case but was arrested for his alleged corruption in Ashiana housing scheme case. “On February 14, 2019, the court gave me bail on merit in the two cases,” he said. The former Punjab chief minister said Pakistan had progressed a lot during the Nawaz Sharif government. “Load-shedding spanned for as many as 20 hours before our government was elected,” he said. “Nawaz Sharif used the resources of the nation to produce 5,000MW electricity.”

He said Prime Minister Khan and his advisers had been issuing statements against the PML-N leadership for the past one-and-a-half year. “Every Pakistani is disappointed with this alliance between Niazi and NAB,” he said.

The PML-N President slammed the Prime Minister and labelled him a “master of U-turns”. “I have never in my life seen a prime minister who lies as much as Imran Khan,” he said. “Had he spent one-fourth of his time for Pakistan’s development circumstances would be different today.”

Sharif said the government had not built a single home in the past one-and-a-half year when it promised people five million houses. He said the “NAB-Niazi alliance” was unable to prove even an ounce of corruption against the Sharifs.

“The failed policies of the PTI government have resulted in unemployment rising in Pakistan. We are burying ourselves in debt,” he said. He said there were some ministers in the government who had used their political influence to have loans written off. “Those who were involved in corruption, you made them your advisers,” he said.