ISLAMABAD, April 8: Representatives of the Rental Power Projects (RPPs) have started contacting the National Accountability Bureau for payment of dues under the directives of the Supreme Court, sources in the NAB told Dawn on Sunday.

They said that some of the owners and officials of the RPPs met senior officials at the NAB headquarters and assured them that they would pay all the dues.

“Two or three owners of RPPs met top officials of the NAB on Saturday and assured them about the payments,” said a senior official of the NAB.

He said the NAB had served notices to owners and chief executives of all RPPs to pay amount of Rs22 billion they had received from the government as mobilisation advance for setting up RPPs. However, most of the RPPs could not start the initial work even after receiving the money and those who installed their plants committed an inordinate delay and did not meet the schedule time.

The Supreme Court in its recent verdict declared the RPPS ‘non-transparent’ and directed the NAB to recover the money from the owners and with interest for the period in which they had kept the money with them.

“We are hopeful that we will recover the money in the RPPs case,” the official said.

However, there are reports that some of the owners and chief executives of the RPPs have gone underground or escaped abroad and that they have shifted their money to offshore banks.

The NAB has already put the names of four former federal ministers, including Raja Pervaiz Ashraf of the PPP, four federal secretaries, owners and chief executives of RPPs and some other bureaucrats on the Exit Control List (ECL).

The sources said the government approved RPPs in September 2008 and despite some reservations shown by the finance ministry Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani insisted that the government has to go with RPPs because of what he called ‘political compulsions’.

On this, the prime minister was suggested for the third party audit of the RPPs and therefore the Asian Development Bank was asked for the audit.