Abbasi slams 'corruption in accountability system'

Ex-PM says electricity prices will come down if people pay taxes

KARACHI:

Former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has fired a broadside against the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), saying that Pakistan was the only country in the world where the accountability institution was the most corrupt.

Abbasi was speaking to reporters in Karachi at the accountability court after the hearing of a reference on illegal recruitment at PSO. Abbasi said that he would ask everyone to become sincere to the country.

The former prime minister said he had been coming to the hearings of this reference for more than four years now. "Everyone knows the truth about this reference," he said. "Pakistan is the only country in the world whose accountability institution is the most corrupt," he charged.

"Even after four amendments [to the accountability laws], there is no change. NAB officers have left the institution after becoming billionaires," he claimed. Abbasi pointed out that the incumbent government had promised to abolish NAB but "today it is strengthening its hands".

Abbasi, who launched the Awaam Pakistan (AP) party this year after parting ways with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), also took aim at a former NAB chairman during whose tenure the reference had been filed against him. "Regarding Javed Iqbal, I had said that he would be the first to flee the country," he said.

Speaking about the current situation in the country, Abbasi said that paying electricity bills had become very difficult for people. He stressed that electricity bills could be much lower if the dollar rate were lower. However, he added that if people were to pay their taxes, electricity prices would come down.

On IPPs, he said they had been invited here to establish plants. "People from outside came at our invitation and made the investments - and now we are calling them corrupt," he said. "Instead of blaming each other, we need to rectify things," he said.