In trouble — again

Barely a month after former prime minister and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) top leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi won court reprieve following a pretty long seven-month incarceration, he faces the prospect of again being pushed behind bars. The trouble for the veteran politician appears not yet over. An accountability court on Friday issued a non-bailable arrest warrant for Abbasi, the senior vice president of the PML-N, in a fresh reference filed against him by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for allegedly appointing Sheikh Imranul Haq as managing director of the Pakistan State Oil (PSO) in violation of rules during his tenure as petroleum minister. The new reference is filed a month after the former prime minister had secured bail from the Islamabad High Court in another reference accusing him of flouting rules when he had awarded the contract for an LNG terminal during his tenure as petroleum minister.

Not surprisingly, the party saw it as part of the government’s witch-hunt campaign to hound its political adversaries, although the country’s top anti-graft watchdog works independently of government’s control. PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif was livid at what he usually refers to as NAB-Niazi nexus for “fighting the media and the opposition” instead of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. Rather than contesting the charges for which Abbasi faces the new arrest warrant, the party head chose to attack the government for its perceived hand behind the NAB move. “While the world was focused on curbing the spread of the disease, the PTI government’s priority was to send its rivals to jail,” he thundered. “This is not the time for political shows.”

NAB had informed the Supreme Court in December 2018 that Haq’s appointment was based on “favouritism and personal friendship through a tailor-made advertisement, as he had no experience in the field of oil marketing”. Be that as it may, we are inclined to suggest that the party will do well if it fights the case in court and gets its leader cleared instead of muddying the political waters at a time when all sections of society need to join forces in tackling the threat of corona contagion.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, March 30^th, 2020.

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