NAB record states it investigated over 250 MPs since 2017

Painting a grim picture of allegations of corruption and misuse of authority against politicians, the official record of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) suggests that it had investigated more than 250 (22% in total) MPs since 2017 and filed as many as 513 references, investigations, inquiries and complaints involving an alleged loss of nearly Rs700 billion to the national exchequer against sitting/ex-MPs representing nearly a dozen political parties.

NAB had started nearly 450 inquiries (88% of total 513) against 210 leaders of Opposition political parties, which included 86 against sitting/ex-MPs of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), 62 against PML-N MPs, eight against the Muttahida Qaumi Movement's (MQM) MPs, Pakistan Muslim League-Q’s (PML-Q) MPs and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam’s (JUI-F) MPs each, one against Pakistan Muslim League’s Zia (PML-Zia) MP, Pakhtunkhawa Milli Awami Party’s (Pk-MAP) MP, Qaumi Watan Party’s MP, Balochistan National Party’s (BNP) MP each, six against Awami National Party’s (ANP) MPs and three inquires against National Party’s (NP) MPs.

NAB had started 48 inquiries against PTI MPs during this period as well.

The bureau’s regional offices, including the headquarters, had served nearly 1,250 notices on these aforementioned MPs since 2017, according to official statistics Geo News got access to. NAB had sent nearly 1,159 (92%) notices to MPs belonging to Opposition political parties.

It had dropped over three dozen inquiries/investigations during this period. The bureau had closed 14 inquiries/investigations against key leaders of the PTI, 12 inquiries against sitting/ex MPs of PPP, four inquiries against MPs of PML-N, five inquiries/investigations against top leadership of the PML-Q and an investigation was dropped against Aftab Sherpao of the QWP.

Some key inquiries NAB had dropped against PTI and PML-Q top leaders included Prime Minister Imran Khan (NAB neither confirmed nor denied despite many reminders sent to the bureau in the past two months), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Mahmood Khan, Defence Minister Pervez Khattak, ex-cabinet members Zafar Mirza, Aamir Kiani, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Punjab Assembly Speaker Pervaiz Elahi, Federal Minister Monis Elahi, ex-overseas minister Zulfi Bukhari, Manzoor Wattoo and the list goes on.

It had dropped some inquiries against PPP leaders, including Ghulam Qadir Palijo, Bux Mahar, Zafar Leghari, etc. Key investigations either closed or put on hold included helicopter misusage, Malam Jabba, medicine scandal, billion trees scam, BRT Peshawar, assets beyond means cases against the Chaudhrys of Gujrat etc.

Geo News learnt on authority that Inayatullah Khan, senior investigation officer at NAB KP had completed his investigation into the alleged misuse of an official helicopter by PTI Chairman Imran Khan months back.

"This investigation found that the national exchequer had nearly suffered a loss of around Rs140 million in the use of MI-17 and Ecureuil helicopters for around 250 hours," revealed a NAB official.

The KP NAB team had recommended recovery of Rs40 million from the pocket of the PTI chairman on using KP government's official helicopter MI17 for 74 hours, said the official seeking anonymity. NAB had recorded statements of Imran Khan, Pervez Khattak and some other civil servants in early 2018 in this case.

KP NAB had sent these findings to Chairman Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal who has yet to decide either to close this inquiry or to follow the findings. No official comment comes from the NAB on it despite having sent several reminders.

However, a senior NAB official, who was part of the investigation, said "recommendations generally are to recover the amount from persons who had misused it [in this case]--- in similar cases of misuse of government property bring irregularity."

Geo News, under the right to information laws, continuously kept writing to the NAB KP, Rawalpindi office, the spokesperson and chairman to know about updates on the misuse of KP helicopters case during the past eight weeks. But the bureau neither denied any information nor confirmed the latest development.

NAB had arrested 17 key leaders of PML-N, including former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Ahsan Iqbal, Khawaja Asif, Shehbaz Sharif and Hamza Shehbaz, eight leaders of PPP, including Asif Zardari, Faryal Talpur, Agha Siraj Durrani, Sharjeel Memon, Khursheed Shah and two leaders of PTI Aleem Khan and Sibtain Khan during this period.

Leaders being probed by NAB:

PTI’s Faisal Zaman, Shaukat Yousafzai, Jaffar Leghari, Nasrullah Dareshak, Sibtain Khan, Talib Nakai, Usman Buzdar, Ansar Majeed, Saeed Akbar, Haider Thind, Karamat Ali, Khusro Bakhtiar, Hashim Jawan, Adil Sheikh, Noor-ul-Haq, Hamid Nasir, Nasir Cheema, Sardar Ashiq, Amir Gopang, Ghulam Sarwar Khan, Ahmed Hassan, Firdous Ashiq Awan, Azam Swati, Ali Dareshik, Abdul Qadir, Liaqat Jataoi, Shahnawaz Marri, Ziaullah Afridi, Tariq Bashir, Ziaullah Bangash, Amjad Afridi, Imtiaz Qureshi, Aamir Kiyani, Zafar Mirza, Mehmood Khan, Basit Sultan, Mohsin Aziz, Atif Khan, Muhammad Iqbal, Zulfi Bukhari, Sohail Zafar, Ghazanfar Cheena, Masood Ahmed, Shaukat Tareen and Firdous Ashiq

PPP’s Nawabzada Mehmood Zeb, Mehr Irshad, Nawab Sanaullah Zehri, Murad Ali Shah, Awais Shah, Ali Ghulam, Saeed Khan, Raja Khan Mehar, Nisar Khuhro, Sharjeel Memon, Abdul Karim, Abdul Majeed, Pir Qadir Shah, Yousaf Raza Gilani, Raja Pervez, Jam Shoro, Owais Qadir, Aamir Magsi, Nadir Magsi, Sardar Khan, Burhan Khan, Abdur Rauf Khoso, Khursheed Shah, Dr Asim, Naheed Khan, Safdar Abbasi, Aslam Raisani, Manzoor Wasan, Agha Siraj Durrani, Sohail Anwar Sial, Usman Saifullah, Anwar Saifullah, Humayun Saifullah, Saleem Saifullah, Nasir Shah, Ejaz Jakhrani, Sher Khan, Mukesh Kumar, Ramesh Lal, Ghaibi Chandio, Murtaza Baloch, Aamir Magsi, Nadir Magsi, Sher Azam Wazir, Ghulam Qadir Palijo, Rubina Khalid, Saleem Mandiviwal, Sehar Kamran, Shehla Raza, Jam Mehtab, Dr Sikandar Ali, Sohrab Sarki, Mumtaz Jakhrani, Sadiq Umrani, Nasrullah Baloch, Yousaf Talpur, Farzana Raja, Mahmood Zeb, Yasin Khalil, Tehmash Khan, Asma Alamgir, Arbab Alamgir, Ziaul Hasan, Ali Malkani, Abdul Sattar, Gian Chand, Dost Rahimon, Aijaz Helepoto, Agha Tariq, Manzoor Wassan, Qaim Ali Shah, Tamash Khan, Taimur Talpur, Hakeem Baloch, Gyanchand Essrani, Pir Mazhar and Ali Mardan.

PML-N’s Safdar Awan, Rana Sanaullah, Rana Mashhood, Khawaja Saad Rafique, Ishaq Dar, Nawaz Sharif, Rahila Magsi Abdul Karim, Iftikhar Shah (late), Pir Sabir, Rana Ishaq, Javed Latif, Fazal Khan, Marvi Memon, Anusha Rehman, Armaghan Subhani, Mir Izhar, Kalsoom Perveen (late), Miftah Ismail, Khawaja Asif, Sohail Butt, Rai Mansab, Muhammad Munir, Rafique Paran, Qaiser Magsi, Chaudhry Tanveer, Ahmed Khan, Sher Ali, Naeem Anwar, Saleem Khalid, Ghazala Shaheen, Baleeghur Rehman, Khawaja Salman, Azhar Qayyum, Mehr Aijaz, Saiful Malook, Ismail Gujjar, Inita Irfan, Tariq Fazl, Sardar Mushtaq, Saira Afzal, Abid Sher, Shamim Akhtar, Rana Shoaib, Kamran Michael, Amir Muqam, Barjees Tahir, Abdur Rauf, Mehtab Abbasi and Maryam Aurangzaib.

PML-Q’s Tariq Bashir, Asim Kurd, Kamil Ali, Rizwan Zafar, Jaffar Khan and Jawad Kamran.

JUI-F’s Akram Durrani, Zahid Durrani, Fazl-ur-Rehman, Abdul Malik, Ameer Zaman, George Jaffar, Abdul Rehman and Abdul Wasay.

MQM’s Babar Ghauri, Adil Siddique, Rauf Siddique, Waseem Akhtar, Farooq Sattar, Khalid Maqbool and Khawaja Sohail.

BNP’s Nawaz Kakar.

BAP’s Jan Jamali, Muhammad Khan, Ghafoor Lehri and Zubaida Jalal

ANP’s Qaiser Wali, Sattara Ayaz, Murid Kazim, Masoom Shah, Ahmed Bilour and Ameer Haider.

Pk-MAP’s Obaidullah Babat.

BNP’s Ameer Zaman.

NP’s Malik Baloch, Rehmat Saleh and Khalid Langu.

MLF’s Hasnain Mirza, Ali Ghulam and Murtaz Jatoi.

Originally published in The News