ISLAMABAD: The Natio­nal Accountability Bureau (NAB) is likely to approve a reference on Thursday (tod­ay) against PML-N leader Ahsan Iqbal in the controversial sports city pro­­­ject launched in his hometown of Narowal in 2009.

According to NAB, its Executive Board Meeting (EBM) is likely to approve five references on Thursday.

In a private TV talk show on Tuesday, Mr Ahsan said that NAB had been investigating the sports city case against him for the last two-and-a-half years but did not file a reference against him.

However, a source in NAB said that a pre-EBM meeting had already approved the reference against Mr Iqbal.

The source said that a reference would also be approved against officials of the National Testing Service (NTS) for being allegedly involved in a Rs158 million scam. The NTS is a private organisation which con­­­­ducts tests for admissions to educatio­nal institutions and appo­intments in government organisations.

Interestingly, a large number of posts in NAB are also filled through the mandatory NTS test.

Mr Ahsan was arrested by NAB in December and he remained in custody for two months. He has pleaded his innocence in the case, but NAB has accused him of initiating the sports city project close to the Pak-India bord­­er area in Narowal, escalating its cost from Rs750 million to Rs2.5 billion by “misusing” his office when he was minister for planning and development in the last PML-N government.

About the case, Mr Iqbal says that when the PML-N came to power in 2013, he, as the planning minister, took up several projects which remained incomplete and the sports city was one of them.

The funds spent on the project were approved by the cabinet, parliament and the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council, the PML-N leader says.

Published in Dawn, October 22nd, 2020