The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has come to a virtual standstill in the absence of a chairman and orders from the Supreme Court that the deputy chairman not perform, even temporarily, the duties of the NAB chief.
Under the National Accountability Ordinance of 1999, the organisation’s powers are highly concentrated in the position of the chairman which has been vacant since March 10, when the Supreme Court ruled that the appointment of a new chairman, Syed Deedar Hussain Shah, was illegal.
The previous chairman, Nawid Ahsan, had resigned in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s rulings on the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) case.
Article 6c of the ordinance states that “when the chairman NAB is absent or unable to perform the functions of his office due to any reason whatsoever, the deputy chairman will act as the chairman NAB.”
The Supreme Court, however, in its ruling on the Bank of Punjab fraud case, ordered the deputy chairman to stop performing the duties of the chairman. The legal basis for this ruling still remains unclear.
The current deputy chairman is Javed Kazi, who was appointed for a non-extendable period of three years in May 2010. According to sources familiar with the matter, the government is unlikely to intervene in Kazi’s tenure and he is likely to complete his term in 2013.
NAB officials find the Supreme Court’s rulings highly perplexing. Some argue that the changes have culminated in a condition of organisational atrophy and administrative paralysis, which has rendered effectively impossible the coherent and co-ordinated discharge of the function of the bureau.
“The organisation and its officials feel very uncertain about their future,” said one NAB official who wished to remain anonymous. “Our work has been seriously impeded by the premature changes in the hierarchy.”
Published in The Express Tribune, April 01st, 2011.
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