Daily Times

An accountability court on Tuesday granted remand of senior bureaucrat Fawad Hassan Fawad – accused in various corruption cases – to the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) custody for a day.

NAB, which arrested deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s former principal secretary earlier this month on July 5, presented the top civil servant before an accountability court on Tuesday.

The anti-graft bureau’s prosecutor apprised the court of the charges against Fawad Hassan Fawad. They said that the government officer had misused his authority and awarded the contract to Casa Developers in the Ashiana-e-Iqbal Housing Scheme.

They further said that the accused had caused a loss of billions of rupees to the national exchequer in various scams.

Moreover, NAB accused Fawad of burying a file of the inquiry committee.

The accountability court then remanded Fawad in NAB’s custody until today (Wednesday).

According to NAB officials, Fawad wrongfully awarded the Ashiana-e-Iqbal Housing Scheme’s contract 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 & Sons.

However, NAB says then Punjab chief minister Shehbaz Sharif and his aides awarded the Rs 14 billion contract to Lahore Casa Developers – a proxy group of Paragon City (Pvt) Limited, which is said to be owned by former Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique.

Fawad, who was implementation secretary to the Punjab CM at the time, levelled charges of wrongdoings against Chaudhry Latif & Sons in order for the contract to be awarded to Casa Developers.

Shehbaz Sharif has already appeared before NAB in the case while former Lahore Development Authority chairman Ahad Cheema is on judicial remand after having been arrested over the case.

Published in Daily Times, July 18^th 2018.