ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has summoned Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Ahsan Iqbal on Monday for recording his statement in a multi-billion-rupee case relating to the controversial Sports City Project in Narowal.

It is the second time in two months that the anti-graft watchdog has summoned the PML-N leader to seek details of his income and expenditures.

When contacted by Dawn on Sunday, the NAB spokesman confirmed that the PML-N leader had been summoned for Monday.

The opposition leader had already replied to a questionnaire given to him by the bureau in connection with the same case. Mr Iqbal has been accused of using funds of the federal government and the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) for a sports city being established in Narowal.

The PML-N leader had said he had submitted documents related to his income and expenditures to Rawalpindi NAB.

He claimed that he had nothing to do with the case as the project had been launched in 2009 during the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government when he was not a federal minister.

He said that before Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) came to power, the project of NSC was 90 per cent complete, but the present government had turned it into ruins.

“In fact NAB should take those people to task who are responsible for the destruction of a national asset [NSC],” he added.

The PML-N leader said that when he became a federal minister, the NSC project was in the doldrums and like many other stalled projects, the PML-N government revived it and took it to near completion.

He said that AstroTurf (artificial grass) was imported for the ground in the sports city. It was to be laid within six months.

“The present government stalled the project and did not place AstroTurf. As a result the artificial grass has become useless.”

Published in Dawn, December 23rd, 2019