LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB), once again, summoned Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president Shahbaz Sharif to its office on June 25, after he failed to appear before NAB on Monday to answer questions about the Punjab Saaf Pani Company scam.

Mr Sharif had claimed earlier that he would cooperate with NAB, but chose not to appear before its three-member combined investigation team to respond to queries about illegalities in the project.

“After his failure to appear before it, NAB issued another notice to Mr Sharif, directing him to appear before the CIT on June 25,” an official source told Dawn. “Amir Afzal had appeared before NAB on behalf of Mr Sharif and handed over a statement of his answers to the questions raised by NAB,” he said.

The Punjab government did not give a reason why Mr Sharif had skipped the NAB appearance. Malik Mohammad Ahmad, ex-Punjab government spokesman, had earlier said that Mr Sharif would appear before NAB (on Monday) to reply to its queries with regard to Saaf Pani Company. “Mr Sharif has served the people of the province with full dedication and honesty and will clarify any matter in this regard,” Mr Ahmad added.

Earlier, Mr Sharif had appeared before NAB to answer questions about alleged misuse of authority in the award of a contract worth Rs14 billion in the Ashiyana Housing scheme, and recorded his statement.

Published in Dawn, June 5th, 2018