Daily Times

The National Accountability Bureau on Saturday raided the Lahore-residence of arrested bureaucrat Fawad Hasan Fawad, sources informed.

Hassan was arrested on July 5 on corruption allegations. He was presented before an accountability court on Friday that remanded him into the anti-graft body’s custody for fourteen days.

According to sources, important record was found from the top civil servant’s house. The raiding officials took in their custody two laptops, five mobile phones, and 30 USBs from Fawad’s house. They were also able to obtain the password of the arrested bureaucrat’s Blackberry phone.

NAB officials have sent the devices to the forensic laboratory to recover deleted data, sources told.

According to NAB officials, Fawad wrongfully awarded the Ashiana-e-Iqbal Housing Scheme’scontract to ‘favourites’, illegally ordered the shifting of nine CNG stations and also worked in a private bank from 2005 to 2006 without official permission.

Moreover, while being the provincial health secretary, Fawad acquired six mobile health units which were purchased at a higher-than-market rate, a NAB spokesperson said.

Fawad has served as former PM Nawaz Sharif’s principal secretary and is considered close to the former premier. He was removed from the post of principal secretary on June 1 this year and appointed director general of Civil Services Academy, Lahore. The accused bureaucrat was also being probed by NAB for possession of assets beyond known sources of income.

According to NAB, the contract for the housing scheme was won by a construction company titled Chaudhry Latif and Sons.

However, NAB says then Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his aides awarded the Rs14 billion contract to Lahore Casa Developers – a proxy group of Paragon City (Pvt) Limited, which is said to be owned by Railways Minister Saad Rafique. Fawad, who was implementation secretary to the chief minister Punjab at the time, levelled charges of wrongdoings against Chaudhry Latif and Sons in order for the contract to be awarded to Casa Developers.

Published in Daily Times, July 8^th 2018.