NAB breathing its last due to funding cuts

[Naveed Yaseen]

Shakeel Anjum
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has almost exhausted the budget allocated by the government and its financial strangulation might cause its fall within a couple of weeks.

Informed sources, requesting anonymity, confirmed that the entire budget of Rs150 million given by the government has been spent by the NAB in the first quarter of the current fiscal year and it was faced with serious challenges to carry on its routine anti-corruption operations.

Sources said that the NAB has already started the process of transferring small-scale corruption cases to the provincial anti-corruption establishments due to its weak financial position to sustain the expenses incurred on investigating cases.

A major downsizing was undertaken by the NAB in mid-July whereby 126 officers in BS-17 and above were shown the door due to budgetary constraints. These steps, coupled with the infamous National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), has adversely affected the performance of the once most feared premier anti-corruption agency of the country.

Sources said that the prime minister’s announcement to close down the NAB in his maiden speech to the National Assembly and subsequent steps had also a dampening effect on the morale of the officers investigating mega cases of corruption involving billions of rupees.

“The very announcement of the disbandment of the NAB by the prime minister has emboldened the looters and plunderers of public money to such an extent that they now hardly take the investigators seriously. These corrupt elements are now reluctant to join investigation with the hope to escape accountability once the NAB becomes a ‘relic of the past’, the source said.

He said that the dilemma faced by investigators was confounded by the two recent incidents in which NAB earned wrath of the Supreme Court and Parliament. Citing the incidents, the source said that NAB officers had to land in jail for arresting a prime accused in Rs9 billion Bank of Punjab scam in the Supreme Court premises. The chief justice of Pakistan took suo moto notice of the incident of manhandling of the accused and found two NAB officers guilty of violating sanctity of the apex court. Both were sent to jail while the accused was set at liberty.

The other incident took place in Rawalpindi where officers of NAB had arrest warrant against an ex-deputy director of the CDA facing corruption charges. The accused was related to a ruling PPP senator. When they tried to arrest him, the senator reportedly raised hue and cry and submitted a privilege motion in the Senate the same day. The upper house unanimously adopted a resolution calling for abolition of the NAB, the source recalled. These two incidents, according to the source, have awakened investigation officers to the harsh reality that the era of accountability was over now and they had to think twice while laying hands on the corrupt.

The source alleged that the financial strangulation of the NAB smacked of the designs of the government to sacrifice the anti-corruption drive at the altar of so-called reconciliation. The NAB has been criticised for its role of twisting the arms of political opponents by the previous military regime. A number of MNAs were able to get corruption cases against them dropped once they sided with ‘King’s Party’ soon after the 2002 elections.

However, the source while rejecting the charge said that the decision to end investigations against the said MNAs was taken by the then government. “Given the administrative and financial autonomy, the NAB cannot defy the government’s orders and is supposed to follow its instructions. The decision came from the top leadership of the time which brought bad name to the organisation itself”, he said.

The source, while defending the performance of NAB, claimed that it had achieved unprecedented successes in Pakistan’s anti-corruption history, adding that during its nine years of existence, it recovered Rs230 billion corruption money and succeeded in court convictions of corrupt elements in more than 500 cases.

“If organisations were to be abolished on the basis of performance then no other department deserves to exist. If performance be the sole criteria, then I ask you, has police, FIA, Wapda, judiciary and even the parliament have delivered 100 percent results,” he asked.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=143969