Public accounts ‘comedy club’

PTI claims Shehbaz is using his role as PAC chairman to shield himself against corruption cases

After months of wrangling, the issue of chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee was seemingly resolved with the position going to Leader of the Opposition Shehbaz Sharif, but of late, it appears as if things are back to square one in that particular context.

The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf now claims that Shehbaz is using his role as PAC chairman to shield himself against corruption cases.

A more elaborate explanation of this stance was not forthcoming, but it does seem suspicious that the change in stance came on the day a PTI bigwig, Aleem Khan, was picked up by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) over his real estate dealings.

The PTI did speak on Aleem’s arrest by claiming that it was just a NAB ‘balancing act’ before the arrest of a big opposition leader — implied to be Shehbaz — and then put forward a case for Shehbaz’s resignation as the PAC chairman just as Aleem resigned as a Punjab minister.

While there is a case for Shehbaz’s resignation on moral grounds, the PTI has not exactly enforced an across-the board resignation policy: Jahangir Tareen was chairing meetings at the Prime Minister House even after being convicted by the Supreme Court.

The PTI had then argued that Tareen had filed a review, which was ongoing at that time. Similarly, Shehbaz has not been convicted of anything yet.

It would be better to let the business of government proceed, at least till such time that he is indicted, instead of indulging in partisan politics of the sort that was witnessed in the most recent PAC meeting.

In that meeting, the committee had called in PTI MNA Nasrullah Dreshak over a letter he had written to Shehbaz calling on him to resign because the FIA had summoned him in corruption cases. Shehbaz asked the FIA chief if he had been summoned by the agency, and the reply was in the negative. Dreshak did not apologise.

No wonder that Rana Tanvir Hussain, also of the PML-N, said the PTI’s demands were turning parliament into a ‘comedy club’.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 9^th, 2019.

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