Crippled NAB bodes well for NRO beneficiaries By Ansar Abbasi

[LahoreEstate]

ISLAMABAD: After the unveiling of the names of NRO beneficiaries, particularly the ruling class, the question striking every mind is how these big-wigs would continue to retain their present positions and status.

There is good news for these beneficiaries as the tamed and subdued National Accountability Bureau (NAB) fears that unless it is independently allowed to pursue corruption cases of the NRO beneficiaries on merit, acquittal of all the accused, despite the presence of concrete evidence, is imminent.

Sources in the NAB say reopening of the cases of the NRO beneficiaries would be meaningless if the bureau continues to be controlled by the government. In the absence of an independent accountability apparatus, the government would expect from the NAB prosecutors to lose or concede cases of corruption and misuse of authority against the powerful and the mighty in the present government.

The sources said the government has already made the NAB a completely impotent body by making it to dance to its tunes. The rulers have not only indicated to abolish the bureau but have also drastically cut its budget, besides inducting favourites.

Referring to a few corruption cases settled outside the NRO through the normal court processes in the present government, involving high-profile public office holders, the NAB sources said that in order to ensure honourable acquittals, the NAB was directed to make certain that its prosecutors did not pursue the cases on merit in the concerned courts. The friendly prosecution behaved as per the dictates of the rulers, which resulted in the desired results — honourable acquittal from corruption cases through normal court processes.

Analysts say if this could be proved it would be a gross obstruction of justice and a violation of laws and the Constitution. “The same formula is now expected to apply in the cases of all those important players, including federal ministers, key advisers and influential bureaucratic appointees, whose corruption cases would revive with the demise of the NRO,” a NAB source said, adding that despite the fact that the NAB has been used for political victimisation in the past, most of the corruption cases and the references made by the bureau have strong evidence to prove these cases in the court of law.

These sources said that without the NAB being administratively and financially autonomous, the dream of across-the-board accountability could never be fulfilled. The NAB even in the Musharraf government was not allowed to target pro-Musharraf politicians and his ministers despite massive corruption and mega financial scandals that had surfaced during his tenure.

However, under the present government the NAB has been made completely redundant and is not even allowed to probe massive corruption cases of the Musharraf era. Now, it is said the government intends to abolish the NAB and replace it with a new accountability commission, which would, however, remain under the strict control of the government.

Ironically, the draft accountability law that has recently been finalised by the government, if enacted in its present shape, would promote corruption instead of curbing it as it contains a permanent NRO for the politicians. It contains a controversial clause which says: “No case against the holder of a public office shall be registered, after three years of the expiry of his term or of his ceasing to hold office, of an offence under this Act which is alleged to have been committed during his tenure.”

The said clause was rejected by the committee but was mysteriously added in the final draft of the accountability commission, reportedly by a former law minister who still holds the strings although he has moved to a top parliamentary position.

Sources said that the new accountability commission is proposed to be placed under the Law Ministry, which would never allow it to function as an autonomous body. It would perhaps be used for political vendetta.

Interestingly even the PML-N members of the committee did not object to the Law Ministry’s proposed control over the future accountability commission. The NAB sources said that whether the NAB continues to exist or it is replaced by the new accountability commission, fair and across-the-board accountability could only be ensured by making it independent, both financially and administratively. One option could be to put it under judicial committee comprising some selected members of the superior judiciary and members of parliament belonging to all different shades of political parties.

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