No corruption proved yet Imran did everything to implicate him in false cases, claims Shehbaz

PML-N President and Opposition Leader in National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif has said that for the past 3.5 years,  Imran Niazi and his cronies did everything to implicate him in false cases while trillions of rupees of the nation were looted by himself and people in his own house.

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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.  When the bid opened the lowest bid was Rs 1.110 billion 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 over Rs 1 trillion 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 claimed, and added that if the devaluation was factored in that makes over Rs 650 billion.

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He said that 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.