ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) leader Ahsan Iqbal appeared before an accountability court here on Tuesday in connection with the Narowal sports complex case.
Iqbal on February 10 had moved an application seeking acquittal in the case.
The hearing was however adjourned after the defense counsel did not appear due to a lawyers’ strike in Islamabad.
The hearing was subsequently adjourned till March 10.
Iqbal was arrested by NAB in December 2019. He remained in custody for over two months before securing bail from the Islamabad High Court (IHC) in February 2020.
According to the NAB reference, Iqbal and others misused their authority, “illegally enhancing the scope of the project from Rs34.75 million to Rs3 billion”.
The project was conceived in 1999 on Iqbal’s directives “without any feasibility study,” it says.
The Central Development Working Party (CDWP), headed by Iqbal, had initially approved the Narowal project at a cost of Rs34.74m in 1999. The same year on his “illegal” directive to the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) and the National Engineering Service of Pakistan, the project’s scope was enhanced to Rs97.52 million.
Iqbal identified the land for the project and provided specific Khasra (plot) numbers to the PSB to acquire the land, but the PSB on the directives of the Ministry of Planning, Development and Reforms shelved the project in 1999 on the ground that it was not an economic necessity at the time.
Again launched in 2009, the project was approved at a cost of Rs732 million, but soon after the passage of the 18th Amendment, the project was devolved to the Punjab government in 2011.
According to NAB, when Iqbal took over the charge of minister for planning and development in 2013, he illegally directed officials of his ministry to include the Narowal project in the PSDP 2013-14, though it was not included in the draft PSDP 2013-14 as it was a devolved project and was also reflected in Annual Development Programme 2013-14 of the Punjab government.
