PTI govt’s ‘self-serving’ NAB law changes rejected

Opposition parties demand govt bring new ordinance in parliament

ISLAMABAD/ LAHORE/ KARACHI: The government's move to amend the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) 1999 through a presidential decree didn’t go down well with the opposition parties who on Saturday called it an attempt by the ruling party to shield its own corrupt leaders from accountability.

The Rahbar Committee, the decision-making panel of all opposition parties, rejected the newly promulgated National Accountability (Amendment) Ordinance, 2019 and demanded that the matter be discussed in parliament.

The committee was convened by JUI-F’s Akram Durrani in Islamabad where attendees included PML-N’s Ayaz Sadiq, PPP’s Faisal Karim Kundi and Humayun Khan, ANP’s Mian Iftikhar Hussain, PkMAP’s Usman Kakar, Shafiq Pasrori of Markazi Jamiat-e-Ahle-e-Hadees and Hashim Babar of the Qaumi Watan Party.

“Prime Minister Imran Khan has amended the NAB law to protect himself and his friends,” Durrani told the media after the meeting. “He [PM Imran] gave the ‘good news’ to his friends that NAB won’t trouble them anymore,” he added, referring to the premier’s speech a day earlier in Karachi.

Speaking about the alleged witch-hunt of opposition leaders, Durrani said: “We don’t want a confrontation between the state institutions. Every institution must function within its constitutional limits.”

The ordinance -- promulgated by President Dr Arif Alvi a day earlier -- limits the sweeping powers of NAB to act against any individual accused of financial corruption at will. It offers more protection to public office-holders or government officials while at the same time excludes several financial sectors from the purview of NAB.

PML-N Information Secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb said the amendments were unlikely to restore the confidence of the business community.

“The new NAB law has been introduced to give a clean chit to the PTI regime and halt the inquiries into their corruption in mega projects,” she said, referring to the alleged irregularities in the Peshawar Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and Malam Jabba projects.

One amendment to the ordinance reads: “With regard to procedural lapses in any government project or scheme, no action under this Ordinance shall be taken against any holder of public office, unless it is shown that the holder of public office has benefited materially by gaining any asset or monetary benefit which is disproportionate to his known sources of income."

The PTI government in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa had recently filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the Peshawar High Court’s direction to the Federal Investigation Agency to probe into alleged irregularities in the BRT project.

Launched in Oct, 2017 by then PTI’s government led by Pervez Khattak, the BRT project was supposed to be completed in eight months, but it is still under construction and its cost has ballooned to over Rs68 billion from Rs49 billion.

Earlier this month, NAB Chairman Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal spoke about “changing direction of winds” in the drive against corruption while revealing that references regarding alleged financial irregularities in the BRT and Malam Jabba projects were ready.

The PML-N information secretary maintained that opposition leaders had been implicated in fabricated cases through NAB and now an “NRO-Plus” had been introduced to prevent investigation into the PTI government’s corruption.

“If the government wants to amend the NAB law, then it must happen through parliament,” she added.

Sindh Information Minister Saeed Ghani also opposed the new ordinance, saying that the prime minister had tweaked the law to benefit himself and his aides. “He [PM Imran] had said some of his friends were facing NAB scrutiny. He must be happy that he has saved them,” he added.

ANP chief Asfandyar Wali Khan also made similar allegations against the prime minister.

“The ANP rejects the new ordinance. The selected prime minister has turned the Presidency into an ordinance factory,” he said. “The NAB law has been amended to escape accountability in the BRT, Malam Jabba and helicopter cases.”

In Karachi, a citizen moved the Supreme Court against the ordinance.

Mehmood Akhtar Naqvi, in his petition filed in the apex court’s Karachi Registry, contended that all citizens are equal according to the Constitution and the ordinance was in violation of the Constitution and the fundamental rights of citizens.

“The federal cabinet's approval to the NAO (Amendment) Ordinance 2019 is unprincipled and doubtful,” the petition reads. "The ordinance has pushed NAB under the subordination of the scrutiny committee which will systematically affect the utility and importance of the accountability bureau.”