ISLAMABAD: Former federal ministers of the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz have been cited as witnesses against ex-prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and former law minister Dr Babar Awan in the Nandipur corruption reference.

The National Accounta­bility Bureau (NAB) has submitted a list of prosecution witnesses to the accoun­tability court according to which Syed Naveed Qamar, who was the finance minister in the PPP government, and Khwaja Mohammad Asif, the minister for water and power in the previous PML-N government, are among the witnesses.

There are 36 witnesses in the Nandipur reference, and as per the calendar of witnesses, Mr Qamar and Mr Asif are listed at serial number 29 and 30 respectively. Mr Qamar was the finance minister when the Nandipur project was approved. The finance division sent a summary to the ministry of law and justice, which was kept pending, and as per the recent audit report, it cost multi-billion losses to the national exchequer.

The auditor general of Pakistan has found irregularities reportedly worth over Rs80 billion in the Nandipur project, including an over Rs17bn loss due to the delay caused by the law ministry. The special audit report on “the accounts of 4256-525 megawatt combined-cycle power plant project Nandipur” claimed a Rs17.083bn loss “due to delay in legal decision by ministry of law and justice and parliamentary affairs”.

According to the report, the “generation loss due to delay in finalisation of operation and maintenance contract of the plant” was Rs4.503bn. The losses due to the non-conversion of the plant from furnace oil to gas was Rs3.819bn, while irregular and excessive payment to the contractor on account of claims lodged against unapproved amendment was Rs1.148bn. The irregular award of contract in violation of procurement rules was about Rs46bn.

Other losses were related to the irregular appointment of the managing director for the project, uneconomical generation, poor performance, and the illegal resu­mption of work with blacklisted firm M/S Dongfang.

Work on the project commenced in October 2008 with the completion date falling on April 16, 2011. Project shipments started on schedule but foreign loans could not be secured. The availability period for foreign loans was until August 31, 2011, but legal opinion was issued belatedly on Oct 19, 2011, after the expiry of the availability period for foreign credit facilities.

On Monday, an accountability court indicted former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Babar Awan, and others accused in the Nandipur reference.

The court also summoned prosecution witness Mohammad Naeem on March 19 for recording his statement.

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2019