To avoid mark-up: AG Office wanted early payment to Broadsheet

ISLAMABAD: The Attorney General’s Office had been pressing the NAB since 2018 to expedite the reward payment to Broadsheet to avoid mark-up and other costs but the Bureau did not act on the advice, leading to a payment of US$29 million as against the original award of $21 million.

A credible source close to the former Attorney General Anwar Mansoor told The News that in official meetings on the subject, Mansoor had advised NAB to pay the reward amount soon after it was announced by the Arbitration Tribunal in 2018 to avoid mark-up and other costs.

However, the source said, NAB was of the view that if the option of appeal was not availed it would lead to audit objections. Mansoor, the source added, had warned that it was unlikely that NAB would get anything at the appeal stage so it was better to forget about the audit objection and save Pakistan from paying more because delay would further add to the costs.

Even after the departure of Anwar Mansoor and following the appointment of Khalid Javed Khan as Attorney General of Pakistan, the AG Office continued to press NAB to avoid delays. However, when contacted NAB sources claimed that it is the Attorney General Office that has been arranging legal counsel for cases involving international arbitration, including the Broadsheet case. Instead of admitting their own mistakes, these sources said, they are shifting the blame on NAB which is uncalled for.

The News also approached the NAB spokesman on Friday for the Bureau's formal response on the matter. The spokesman said he would take up the matter with the concerned officials to get a response for the newspaper. The NAB view on the matter is still awaited and will be published once it is sent to The News.

Meanwhile, sources said that in 2019 the Prime Minister constituted a three-member committee on the matter comprising the law minister, attorney general and the incumbent advisor to the prime minister on the interior. The same committee decided to hold negotiations with the Broadsheet owner for an out-of-court settlement. For this reason, it is said, Shahzad Akbar and other officials met Kaveh Moussavi in 2019. These contacts, however, ended without any positive outcome. Instead, Moussavi, after having been paid US$ 29 million, has been speaking not only against Shahzad Akbar but has also hurled accusations on a senior Pakistani official for demanding ‘cuts’ from Broadsheet.

Moussavi claimed that the PTI government in 2019 was in talks with him to engage Broadsheet for the recovery of an alleged $ 1 billion belonging to PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif. Moussavi asserted that Sharif had stashed $ 1 billion in a Singaporean bank. The PTI government, however, was not convinced that the Moussavi claim was true. The Broadsheet owner though insisted that he ended the negotiations with the government over a new contract after he was asked for cuts.