A disturbing development

The National Accountability Ordinance in Sindh has stood since 1999 — and it is no more. The Sindh law minister has now said that all proceedings, inquiries and investigations that are pending under the NAB ordinance are now transferred to the Sindh Anti-Corruption Establishment. Likewise all legal proceedings already filed or pending will be referred to the anti-corruption courts and proceed there at the stage they had already reached, with the recall of previous witnesses not permitted. As a hijacking of due process and a political move to take the heat of accountability from a single party — the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) — this is both blatant and shameless. The move was prompted by the actions of NAB against the PPP in the course of investigating politicians and PPP party workers on charges of corruption.

The ruling party in Sindh is the PPP and there has long been a struggle between it and federal agencies, with control of the police forces in Sindh being another area where there is friction. Essentially the PPP does not want the federal government making any changes to established custom and practice whereby powerful positions in the government offices and agencies, including the police and investigative agencies, are made according to political preferment rather than on merit. Those appointees are then expected to toe a particular line, favour those that appointed them and generally continue to perpetuate the culture of corruption that makes Sindh rotten to the core — the political core.

With elections now a year away, and with the PPP having an uncertain future in Sindh, this is a crude attempt to immunise any number of its party stalwarts from investigation or indeed conviction considering that this move effectively kills any chance of convictions being attained in ongoing cases. With PPP members of the Sindh Assembly disingenuously claiming that the NAB Ordinance was a black law aimed at politicians their true colours are revealed. Now it is they that blacken the law and Sindh is all the poorer for it.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 5^th, 2017.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.