Exit Shahzad Akbar

Another addition to the list of advisers in the PTI dispensation who were either shown the door or opted to jump ship.

Shahzad Akbar’s stepping down hasn’t come at the right moment. Though the Adviser to the Prime Minister on Accountability had been in rough waters for long, his departure will certainly lead to more explanations from the government. The fact is simple: he was poised with a task, which he abandoned half-way. That too is a consolation to say, as the mandate to recover siphoned off money and alleged looted assets was a failure. The accountability drive is still in a bizarre stage enabling the accused to reap political capital on a shady performance of the prosecution.

The head of the Assets Recovery Unit shot to fame as he played a key role in the Panama Leaks cases against the Sharif family. This galvanised his credentials and Prime Minister Imran Khan banked on his skills, as he was entrusted to recover the stolen money and property. But since then on, it was a tale of trial and error. With most of his time gone vain in ironing out an extradition treaty and other legal softies with Britain and the UAE, where the looted fortunes sit idle, the mandate still hangs in the balance. Moreover, the few of the achievements that came his way were far from being made public, especially a retribution recovery from a British court against a tycoon. Last but not least, he was unable to come up with categorical statistics on his performance. Coupled with this enigma is the disastrous role of National Accountability Bureau. The anti-graft watchdog is a non-starter and has merely been able to recover a little over Rs500 billion in the last three years.

Barrister Shahzad is another addition to the long list of advisers in the PTI dispensation who were either shown the door, or opted to jump the ship for reasons best known to them. This underscores not only the shoddy homework of individuals, but also the damage they caused in terms of reputation to the government. Likewise, the ARU’s dismal performance brings to the fore as to how difficult it is to unmask white collar crime. This new resignation, notwithstanding the ridicule and flak it will draw from the opposition, has simply proved that the system is in need of evolutionary reforms to ensure apt accountability and good governance.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 26^th, 2022.

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