Naming NAB chief: Khursheed Shah dismisses deadlock claims

Says opposition and govt have ‘principally’ agreed to finalise one of the four proposed names.

LAHORE:

Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Khursheed Shah on Friday scotched rumours of a deadlock over the appointment of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman, saying that both he and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had in principle decided to appoint one of the four proposed names soon.

Speaking to reporters at Lahore Airport, Shah said that if there was a deadlock on the issue, he would have readily disclosed it. At the same time, Shah said, he did not know why the premier had postponed his scheduled meetings with him.

However , he did not rule out the possibility of the prime minister being occupied. “Nawaz Sharif, as prime minister, might not have the time to meet me,” he said adding that the two had held five meetings so far on the matter, and in the last meeting, they had agreed to appoint one of the four candidates.

Pakistan Peoples Party’s nominations include bureaucrat Shaukat Hayat Durrani and former judge Justice (retd) Mian Muhammad Ajmal, while the government has pitched names of Chaudhry Rauf and Justice (retd) Chaudhry Ejaz.

The opposition leader had said that he will go and meet the prime minister when he [PM] calls him to finalise a name.

May reject PPP nominations

Sources in Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz told The Express Tribune that the party will not bow before the PPP’s nominations. They alleged that PPP nominee Durrani was a corrupt bureaucrat and had a history of taking bribes from flour associations when he was Punjab food director.

Sources said Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif in his previous tenure had repatriated his services to the federal government that was being headed by the PPP.

A party official said PML-N had serious reservations over Ajmal Mian too, as the party believed that not only the opposition, led by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, but also the judiciary, was critical of him.

PML-N’s senior leadership has alleged that opposition’s strategy was that if the government resisted PPP’s nomination, they would try to delay the appointment until the retirement of the chief justice, and then move the court against the government, on ‘lack of meaningful consultation’.

He further said that the party had many options, including the amendment of the NAB Ordinance to make it more comprehensive and tilt it in favour of the government, adding that the second option was to refer the matter to the apex court.

He said the third option was to appoint a NAB chairman and mention reasons with specific details about the ‘meaningful consultation’ between the two leaders.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 5^th, 2013.