LAHORE: Spokesperson Punjab government, Shahbaz Gill, on Wednesday denied media reports that former chief minister Punjab, Shehbaz Sharif, had been given a ‘clean chit’ during a probe of embezzlement in the laptop scheme.
The spokesperson said the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz attempted to mislead the public with their statements regarding Shehbaz Sharif.
He said all stakeholders involved in the Ashiana Housing Scheme and Sasti Roti scheme will insist there was no corruption in their projects.
“It’s the domain of National Accountability Bureau and anti-corruption department to conduct an inquiry of corruption and further action will be taken by the court.”
He underlined that the NAB was investigating ‘massive corruption’ in the laptop scheme.
Gill said 110,000 laptops were distributed between 2011 and 2012 by the then Punjab government. Similarly, he added that 200,000 laptops were given to students from 2012 to 2014. “The inquiry into the project is underway,” the Punjab government’s spokesperson added.
Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry had said in September that Rs 80 billion had been saved days after the abolishment of the discretionary fund. The public money was retrieved into the public exchequer after projects like laptop scheme were shelved.
The PTI government in October last year had announced to hold an inquiry into the previous PML-N government’s laptop scheme.
PTI leader Usman Dar claimed that laptops were purchased at exorbitant prices, causing a loss to the national exchequer.
