ISLAMABAD: An accountability court on Tuesday returned seven references related to rental power projects (RPPs) to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), citing a lack of jurisdiction.

Accountability Judge Syed Asghar Ali observed the court cannot proceed because of recent amendments to the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999.

These references were filed in connection with the alleged Rs22 billion corruption scam, in which incumbent Speaker National Assembly Raja Pervaiz Ashraf was also accused.

Mr Ashraf has been accused of having received kickbacks and commission in the Rental Power Projects’ deal when he was federal minister for water and power in 2008.

Other than Mr Ashraf, nine firms were accused of receiving more than Rs22bn from the government, but most of them did not set up their plants and some installed after inordinate delay causing a loss to the exchequer.

Of the total amount, NAB has so far recovered Rs5bn, in addition to Rs8bn paid by the firms on the directives of the Supreme Court.

A three-member bench of the Supreme Court headed by then chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry had directed the NAB on Jan 11, 2013 to arrest the accused, including Mr Ashraf who was the prime minister at that time.

The cases pertain to the Guddu, Naudero, Summundri, Karkey, Gulf, Reshman and Satyana RPPs.

Published in Dawn, September 14th, 2022