Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Awami Muslim League (AML) Chief Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed met the chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Wednesday and submitted details of alleged corruption in the award of a contract for the import of liquefied natural gas (LNG) when Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi was the federal petroleum minister.

Talking to the media, Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed claimed that he had done half of the work for the bureau as he had also submitted evidence of the Rs 200 billion scandal.

He claimed that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz had decided to launch an assault against the Supreme Court chief justice and NAB chairman, adding that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was searching for evidence to launch a movement against the NAB chairman.

“They can do whatever they want but will make them fail in their plans,” the AML chief said, adding that he will strike the last nail in the coffin of PML-N’s politics.

On February 12, the SC had dismissed Rasheed’s petition seeking a NAB inquiry against Abbasi as well as his disqualification from Parliament over the LNG scandal.

The three-member SC bench, headed
by Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, had ruled that the case could be taken to NAB.

Justice Ijazul Ahsan had added that NAB could summon the respondents if it deemed fit.

The AML chief had been claiming since Abbasi’s election as prime minister in August this year that the former petroleum minister was guilty of a multi-billion rupee corruption.

Rasheed stated that Abbasi awarded the LNG import contract in 2015 without observing transparency in the bidding process and sought a probe into the LNG import contracts claiming that they were commissioned in violation of rules.

Published in Daily Times, February 22^nd 2018.