*ISLAMABAD – Startling revelations have been made in the case of K Electricshares sales in Pakistan.*
*Abraaj’s co-founder offered to pay $20million to a Pakistani businessmanin the year 2016 to to secure cooperation of then Prime Minister NawazSharif in the sale of firm’s sale of its stake in K-Electric, US basednewspaper Wall Street Journal reported.*
In a report documenting Abraaj’s fall, the newspaper reported earlier thisweek that in the year 2016, Abraaj was looking to sell its stake inK-Electric, the electricity provider to Karachi so the firm’s co-founderArif Naqvi tried to secure the cooperation of then-prime minister, NawazSharif, and his brother Shehbaz, offering a $20 million payment tobusinessman Navaid Malik for his help.
The report cites an October 2015 email to Abraaj co-founder Arif Naqvi frompartner Omar Lodhi in which Navaid Malik said that Shehbaz was “willing togive a strong endorsement” of the deal to Chinese bidders.
“Mr. Malik said it was “important for him to share every detail with thebrothers and get their blessings as well as their instructions as to howthis money should be distributed,” such as “a portion to charity” or “aportion to the election fund kitty,” Mr. Lodhi wrote in the email.
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The report claims that when Naqvi emailed Lodhi about the $20 millioncontract for Navaid Malik in June 2016, he wrote, “This document isexplosive in the wrong hands.” Abraaj and K-Electric shouldn’t be named inthe document, he wrote: “Keep it generic.”
Shehbaz Sharif, Nawaz Sharif and Abraaj co-founder Arif Naqvi have deniedthat they were involved in corruption.
