Bilawal Bhutto summoned by NAB on Feb 13

F.P. Report

ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has summoned Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on February 13 in a case related to the company JV Opal 255.

The bureau has directed the PPP chairman to bring records of the Zardari Group from 2008 to 2019. He has also been directed to bring a list of the Board of Directors.

This is not the first time the accountability watchdog had summoned the PPP chairman. The NAB had earlier summoned him last year on May 29 to record his statement in the money laundering case. He had also been summoned on May 17 in relation to the Park Lane case.

The case against Bilawal Bhutto

The case against Bilawal for which he has been summoned relates to a company titled, JV Opal 225. The company is a joint venture between the Zardari Group Pvt. Ltd — of which Bilawal is a director — and a large real-estate business.

JV Opal was set up in 2011 and had its office on a property in Karachi owned by the Zardari Group. From 2011 to 2013, the company did not generate any revenue, yet it purchased major assets, agriculture lands, commercial and residential properties in Islamabad and Karachi, according to a joint investigation team (JIT) report.

The only amount it received, during this period, was of Rs1.2 billion from its business partner, the real-estate firm, which, according to the JIT report, was not due to the Zardari Group.

The investigators suspect that this payment was made by the real-estate company as a bribe or kickback for getting favours from the Sindh government in the form of illegal allotment of state land.

While the JIT has not been able to make a direct link between the Bhutto scion and the fake accounts, it states that money stashed in these fictitious bank accounts was used to pay the water and sewerage bill of the Bilawal House, an amount to a restaurant that catered an event, to purchase airplane tickets for Bilawal and his younger sister, and to renovate his bomb-proof container and bullet-proof vehicles.