Shehbaz to appear before AC in Ashiana housing scam today

LAHORE: An accountability court will hear the Ashiana Housing scheme case filed against Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif today.

Accountability Court Judge Amjad Nazir Chaudhry will conduct the hearing. Among the accused named in the case, former DG LDA Ahad Cheema, Fawad Hassan Fawad, and others will appear in court.

In addition, the court has also summoned more witnesses in the Ashiana Housing case. The court has already accepted the exemption plea of Shehbaz Sharif from personal appearance in today’s hearing.

Shehbaz Sharif is facing charges of misusing his authority to illegally issue directives for cancellation of a contract with regard to the housing project in 2014, causing Rs715m loss to the national treasury.

Over 6,000 homes were to be built for the poor and needy near Barki road in the city. Land measuring 3,100 kanals were allocated for the purpose. According to NAB, during this time Fawad Hassan, the then secretary implementation to the chief minister exerted undue pressure to have Latif and Sons’ contract cancelled and rewarded to the second-lowest bidder, a firm owned by Kamran Kiyani.

Eventually, the contract was withdrawn from Chaudhry Abdul Latif and Sons’ in 2013, on the recommendation of the probe committee. The company then went to court and received Rs. 5.9 million as a settlement by the Punjab government.

As for the construction of the Ashiana homes, the project was then handed over to Lahore Casa Developers, which is considered a proxy of Paragon City Limited.