LAHORE: Civil Services Academy Director General Fawad Hassan Fawad on Tuesday again skipped appearance in the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in the Rs14 billion Ashiana-i-Iqbal Housing scam.

“On Mr Fawad’s request that he could not appear before a combined investigation team of the NAB Lahore on Tuesday because of a court engagement, the bureau summoned him for Thursday (July 5),” an official told Dawn.

He said the former principal secretary to ousted premier Nawaz Sharif had been directed to come up with documentary evidence to defend himself against allegations that he had played a role in awarding a contract to a firm in violation of rules.

Mr Fawad was the implementation secretary to then chief minister Shahbaz Sharif in 2013 when he allegedly pressurised the Punjab Land Development Company (PLDC) chief executive officer to cancel the contract to a firm and award it to a ‘favourite’ one.

The NAB had also quizzed Shahbaz Sharif for cancelling the award of contract to successful bidder M/S Chaudhry Latif and Sons and instead obliging M/S Lahore Casa Developers -- a proxy group of M/S Paragon City (Pvt) Limited thus causing a loss of millions to the exchequer.

The NAB had last week filed a reference against former Lahore Development Authority director general Ahad Cheema and others for allegedly misusing his authority and getting approved a fraudulent and illegal request by awarding contract of the Ashiana project. He was currently in jail on judicial remand.

The NAB had also launched an investigation into the scam in November. It initiated the probe after receiving a number of complaints regarding an illegal deal involving 3,000 public kanals between the PLDC, a company owned by the government, and private companies.

The bureau has also issued notices to PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif for Thursday in the Punjab Saaf Pani Company and Punjab Power Development Company scams.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2018