Rental Power Case Involving Ex-PM ‘Unmaintainable’ After Changes to NAB Law

An accountability court in Islamabad returned seven rental power plants (RPP) case references to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Tuesday, declaring them unmaintainable after the recent changes in the corresponding laws.

Accountability judge, Syed Asghar Ali, cited the recent amendments to the National Accountability Ordinance 1999 as the reason for the references no longer falling within the jurisdiction of the accountability court.

The seven cases were for the Summundri, Guddu, Gulf, Reshman, Naudero, Satyana, and Karkey RPPs and were filed in relation to an Rs. 22 billion corruption case involving the Speaker of the National Assembly (NA), Raja Pervaiz Ashraf. The NAB had accused him of misusing his powers (to receive commissions and kickbacks) as the Minister of Water and Power in the RPP deal in 2008 when he had been tasked with awarding contracts to firms to overcome the electricity crisis.

The case also involved nine firms that were accused of receiving more than Rs. 22 billion from the government but most of them had failed or delayed establishing their plants, which had incurred huge losses to the national exchequer.

So far, NAB has recovered only Rs. 5 billion of the total amount besides the Rs. 8 billion that the firms have paid as per the instructions of the Supreme Court.

A three-member bench of the Supreme Court, headed by the then-Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Chaudhry, had directed the NAB on 11 January 2013 to arrest the accused, including Pervaiz Ashraf who was the prime minister at the time.