Federal Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry on Tuesday said that National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) was insulting Prime Minister Imran Khan by investigating him in the helicopter misuse case.
Speaking to a local news outlet, he said that the charges were never formalised by NAB in the case. “I think these are excesses by NAB and the anti-graft body is insulting the PM and the system,” he added.
“What is this case about? The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government had sent a helicopter to Imran Khan in which he travelled to inaugurate projects,” he said, adding that NAB has turned it into a laughing matter by making a case out of it and the “world is laughing at us”.
In January 2018, it was reported that the former KP government had spent millions on Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan’s use of the provincial government’s helicopters. A go-ahead for the probe was given in February 2018 by NAB Chairman Justice (r) Javed Iqbal, who directed the bureau to launch a probe against the PTI chief and then-KP chief minister Pervez Khattak over the unofficial use of two government helicopters for a total of 74 hours, causing a loss of Rs2.1 million to the national exchequer. Khattak has already appeared before NAB in the past regarding the case.