LAHORE: Commenting on Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s appearance before a National Accountability Bureau (NAB) investigation team, Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) Central Leader Moonis Elahi said Monday that according to the thinking of the Sharif brothers, accountability is justified only when their political opponents are questioned by a state institution but they immediately start crying foul when they are themselves held accountable by the same institution.
Elahi dubbed the Sharifs as a mixture of uncanny contradictions who were constantly besmearing respectable institutions to hide their own misdeeds. He said that NAB had summoned Shehbaz in connection with the multi-billion rupees heist in Ashiyana Housing Scheme, adding that NAB was investigating the role of the self-styled ‘khadim-e-ala’ in awarding illegal construction contract of Ashiyana-e-Iqbal to M/S Lahore Casa Developers, a proxy company of Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique. Elahi said that the contract was awarded to Saad’s company after the cancellation of a previous contract won by M/S Ch Latif and Sons, thus resulting in a cumulative loss of Rs 905 million to the exchequer.
He further said that NAB was also probing the award of consultancy services of the Ashiyana-e-Iqbal project to M/S Engineering Consultancy Services for Rs 192 million, whereas, the actual cost as quoted by the National Engineering Services Pakistan (NESPAK) was only Rs 35 million. Shehbaz had not been summoned by NAB to give him a clean chit over a cup of tea but to question him over his alleged corruption, Elahi added.
