ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has summoned Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Thursday (today) in a solar lights case.

According the NAB headquarters, NAB-Rawalpindi has called Mr Shah in the solar lights case in which the anti-graft watchdog has already recovered about Rs290 million through plea bargain.

The case is related to the multi-billion fake bank accounts case being tried against the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leadership, including ex-president Asif Ali Zardari, PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Sindh CM Murad Ali Shah, Faryal Talpur and senior bankers and bureaucrats.

The Sindh CM has already visited NAB-Rawalpindi in the same case and he has been summoned for the second time. He has been accused of illegally awarding contracts for purchase and distribution of solar lights in Sindh.

He is also facing some other NAB cases, including sugar mills subsidy case and Nooriabad Power Project case.

The anti-graft body established a combined investigation team led by NAB-Rawalpindi director general Irfan Mangi to probe the fake accounts case.

Media reports said Murad Ali Shah was the Sindh finance minister when subsidies were given to certain sugar mills, including “closed” Thatta Sugar Mills and Dadu Sugar Mills.

The Nooriabad Power Project was originally conceived by the Sindh government in 2012, but it could not materialise then due to “red-tapism and delays in regulatory approvals”.

The project was finally launched in August 2014 under a public-private partnership at a cost of Rs13bn in which the Sindh government held 49 per cent shares and a private company owned 51pc. A 95-km-long, 132kV double-circuit transmission line was laid from Nooriabad to Karachi at a cost of Rs1.95bn.

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2020