An accountability court on Saturday accepted the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) request for a 14-day extension of the physical remand of senior bureaucrat Fawad Hassan Fawad. Fawad Hassan Fawad was arrested by the anti-graft body on July 5 over various corruption charges including the Ashiana-e-Iqbal Housing Scheme case. The court had then granted a 14-day physical remand of the top civil servant on July 6. NAB had requested for an extension following the expiration of the earlier remand’s duration. 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 prime minister 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. Published in Daily Times, July 22nd 2018.