ISLAMABAD: Four new cases against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his family will be forwarded to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) as a ‘hidden’ property of the Sharifs has been found in the UK, announced special assistant to the prime minister on accountability Shahzad Akbar on Saturday.

Mr Akbar, who was accompanied by special assistant to the prime minister on media Iftikhar Durrani, told a press conference that one of the properties, which had been sold earlier this year, was located in Central London.

“It has been revealed by the media that one property located in Central London worth around 2.2 or 2.3 million pounds was owned by the late Begum Kulsoom Nawaz and it was transferred in the name of her son, Hassan Nawaz, in 2016 and it was sold in 2018,” said the special assistant.

He said the government had collected documentary evidence of the property rent that the Sharif family used to receive from 2012 to 2016. “These files had been put away earlier,” he said. “This is a crime. Nawaz Sharif as a parliamentarian had to disclose the wealth of his spouse to the election commission and to the Federal Board of Revenue while filing his annual returns,” announced Mr Akbar.

Ex-premier’s hidden property found in UK, says special assistant to PM

He said the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government had decided to forward the cases regarding this property to the FBR and NAB, as this was a new case against the Sharif family related to assets beyond their known sources of income.

“We need to know the source of money to buy this expensive flat and the money trail to forward the amount from Pakistan to the UK,” he said.

The special assistant announced that Pakistan had asked Britain for all the documents, which might be delivered within a week or two. “We will put before you the whole trail of this along with all the details,” he said.

He added that Pakistan was in the process of signing bilateral information sharing treaties with several countries which were tax havens. “The bilateral treaty with Switzerland is expected to be signed by the year end,” he said. He informed the media that previous governments did not sign the treaty with the Swiss authorities leading to delays in tracing money parked there by the Pakistanis.

Mr Akbar said the PTI government had decided to take up the matter so that the treaty should cover the past cases, too, or it should at least cover a period of the past five years. “We are in the process of signing this information-sharing agreements with the UK, British Virgin Islands, Singapore, Malaysia and the UAE,” he said, adding that the Iqama regime in the UAE was impeding sharing of information about the Pakistanis who owned properties there.

Mr Durrani spoke about the alleged misuse of the PM’s plane. He said Rs340 million was illegally spent on air travel. He told the media that Maryam Nawaz, the daughter of Mr Sharif, used the PM’s aircraft illegally while the air travel expenses of former Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif was Rs600 million.

Mr Akbar said that for personal benefits, the family used the discretionary powers of the prime minister and the chief minister.

He claimed that one of the task forces was also examining the expenditures of and use of official vehicles by incumbent ministers so that official facilities were not misused as had been done by the previous regime.

Giving details of the new cases against the Sharifs being forwarded to NAB, Mr Durrani said they included the charges of misuse of funds in erecting a security fence around the Raiwind Palace; plundering of funds allocated for entertainment and gifts; unauthorised use of the Prime Minister’s aircraft by Maryam Nawaz and the then Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, causing irreparable loss to the national exchequer, adds APP.

He explained that Prime Minister Imran Khan had paid all the expenses for the security fence erected as per the Blue Book around his Banigala residence, while the Sharif family had spent taxpayers’ money for this purpose. About Rs600 million was spent to secure the Raiwind Palace, which was tantamount to misusing the authority and funds, he added.

Mr Akbar said the record of the Prime Minister and Punjab Chief Minister houses would be handed over to NAB facilitating investigation into the new cases.

The special assistant to the PM on the media also disclosed that information being shared by China about the Multan Metro Bus Project would soon be released to the media. He said corrupt practices of the former rulers were surfacing one after the other while they were denying possessing any land at home or abroad. They had distanced themselves from the contents of Qatari letters, he added.

Published in Dawn, November 18th, 2018