PML-N President and Leader of the Opposition Nawaz Sharif Friday said the government – along with the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) -accused him of embezzlement in the Saaf Pani Project but they failed as the court acquitted all accused in the case.
Talking about the corruption case against him, the PML-N leader said the PTI tried finding corruption against him but they never succeeded adding that even the “National Crime Agency failed to file any case of corruption against me in Switzerland.”
Talking to journalists in Lahore, Shahbaz said: “The NAB-Niazi nexus has deteriorated the economic situation of the country.”
Shahbaz talked about “corruption of the incumbent government” and said the nation will hold the government accountable for the looted money.
The PML-N president said the opposition was bringing about the no-confidence motion in favour of the citizens, adding that he “will do whatever the party leader Nawaz Sharif says.”
He further said Pakistan will have to play its role to work on its relations with the neighbouring countries. Shehbaz said for the past 3.5 years Imran Niazi and his cronies did everything in their power and beyond to implicate him in their false cases while trillions of rupees of the nation were looted by himself and people in his own house.
In Saaf Pani case, Aashiyana Case and the 56 company case was used as instruments of the smear campaign run by Imran Niazi to defile his image. Engineer Raja along with other employees of Saaf Pani were persecuted, pressured, harassed, threatened and jailed for months. But they were all exonerated by the NAB court and PTI’s fake cases were exposed.
It was a project of 118 filtered plants for which the bid was announced in April 2015 and the contract was awarded in July 2015.
He said that he chaired the meeting of the Saaf Paani Board on 14 May 2015 as the Chief Minister of the province. The NAB investigators had an issue with it. He said when the bid opened the lowest bid was Rs 1 billion 110.4 million by KSB Pumps. The CEO of this company was also held by NAB and was threatened to become an approver against Shehbaz Sharif, or else. He said the NAB-Niazi alliance did everything they could to implicate him.
Shehbaz said he was aware of the fact that Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules prohibited against negotiating further with the lowest bidder. However, for the advantage of the nation, he said, he blatantly violated this PPRA rule.
He said he committed this violation or the people of the largest province of Pakistan, and pledged to violate such rules that would benefit the people of Pakistan and their financial interests.
He said he asked the lowest bidder to lower their bid by 20 percent, which they refused upon which he called for re-bidding for the contract. But after negotiations they lowered the bid to Rs 980 million, which was Rs 150 million less than the original bid.
This he said was one of the many such incidents where he negotiated with bidders of various projects of transport infrastructure, schools, hospitals, energy projects and managed to save Rs 1 trillion 560 million of the nation. Even in the case of Chiniot Ore which was awarded by General Musharraf to the brother of his advisor without any bidding, he said, he battled for 3.5 years to get that national treasure out of the grasp of this illegal transaction through the courts. Only in the Chiniot Ore case, Rs 400 billion of the nation were saved he said, and added that if the devaluation was factored in that makes over Rs 650 billion.
He said it was a well-known law that any government to government business between Pakistan and China were exempt from any open bidding. But in the Orange Line Project, he opened the bidding and once again by negotiating with the lowest bidder, he was able to save Rs 70 billion of the nation.
“All this is part of history and government record how people worked diligently to save the nation’s resources. But the PTI government had destroyed the country’s economy by punishing everyone who worked day and night. They jailed Ahad Cheema, Fawad Hassan Fawad, party members, members of his family. The NAB-Niazi alliance ripped the trust in the Pakistani economy and its functioning”, he said.
