November 23, 2002	Saturday	Ramazan 17, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Nov 22: The National Accountability Bureau on Friday issued a clean bill of health to Federal Minister for Communication, Javed Ashraf Qazi, saying that there was no evidence of alleged swindling of Rs 40 billion in Railway deals against him.

“Prima facie there is no evidence of corruption against Mr Kazi,” a NAB uniformed spokesman told reporters at a briefing held at the NAB secretariat.

The NAB after a preliminary enquiry conducted during the last one month into the allegations of misappropriating of Rs 40 billion in 10 different deals against the railways minister and former ISI chief found no evidence, he said.

The spokesman said the NAB had not closed down the investigations as they had received instruction from President Gen Musharraf to inquire into these allegations.

The information secretary of Pakistan Muslim League, Siddiqul Farooq, had made these allegations against Javed Ashraf Kazi and asked the NAB to investigate.

Mr Farooq, who had called for an inquiry, could not provide any evidence before the NAB, except some press clippings of a daily from Karachi.

The NAB officials said the real estate deals concluded Kazi would generate Rs 36.2 billion for Pakistan Railways in a period from 20 to 60 years.

The real estate deals were in line with the charter of Pakistan Railways which provides for using Railways land for revenue generation. In this regard he also cited example of Japan, saying that revenue generated by Japanese Railways through its real estate assets were more than the revenues earned by passenger and freight trains.

Railways Golf course project, Railway land allotted for establishing CNG stations and the agreement singed with China for acquiring new coaches and track were included in the list of cases referred to NAB by Mr Farooq.

The spokesman denied that the NAB had played some role in the formation of coalition government.

“The NAB had no role,” he said, adding that nobody from the NAB called any MNA or nobody was called to NAB. He dismissed all such reports of character assassination by the element who wanted to bring down the organization dedicated to root out corruption from the society.

He also refuted reports that the NAB had been trying to make a deal with Asif Ali Zardari. “None from the NAB ever talked to the gentleman,” he added.

About the deal with Nawaz Sharif, he said the NAB had nothing to do with the deal. The cases against Nawaz Sharif were still pending with the NAB and would be opened as and when he returned to the country, he added.

As regard to the cases of corruption against Faisal Saleh Hayyat, he said, the investigations against him were still going on. However, he did not give the details of the cases.