Nandipur corruption case: Babar Awan acquitted, Ashraf’s plea rejected

ISLAMABAD: An accountability court Tuesday acquitted former law minister Babar Awan in the Nandipur power plant corruption reference and rejected the acquittal appeals of former premier and PPP leader Raja Pervez Ashraf, Dr Riaz Mehmood and others.

Judge Arshad Malik announced the decision. Babar Awan and others were indicted in the case filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in March last year. All of the accused had pleaded not guilty.

They were charged with causing delay in approving the project causing billions of rupees loss to the national exchequer.

Awan had submitted his resignation as adviser to the prime minister on parliamentary affairs after the NAB filed the case against him. After his acquittal, President Arif Alvi called him up and congratulated him.

Nandipur Power Project was approved by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) in December 2007 at a cost of $329 million. After approval, the contract was signed in January 2008 between Northern Power Generation Company Limited (NPGCL) and Dong Fang Electric Corporation (DEC) of China. Two consortiums — COFACE for 68.967 million euros and SINOSURE for 150.151 million dollars — were established to finance the project.

In 2008, the Ministry of Water and Power approached the Ministry of Law to give legal opinion but the accused in connivance with each other and with mala fide intentions, repeatedly refused to do so on flimsy grounds.

Babar Awan was minister at that time. Furthermore, the Ministry of Water and Power also failed to take any concrete measures to resolve the issue and the matter remained pending. The legal opinion was issued in November 2011 causing a loss of Rs27 billion to the state kitty on account of delay.