Nazia Nazar
Analysts in TV talk shows and print media are critical of National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) performance. Supreme Court of Pakistan and at times the government functionaries express their dissatisfaction over NAB’s performance, which is based on the way NAB handles the cases against the corrupt or shows lackadaisicalness in the prosecution. Last week, Accountability Court (AC) of Islamabad had released detailed judgment in two corruption references against former president and co-chairperson of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Asif Ali Zardari noting that NAB could not give any evidence against former president in SGS and Cotecna references. The accountability court judge Muhammad Bashir remarked in the detailed judgment that the court drew the NAB prosecutor’s attention several times to produce original documents and solid evidence in support of the references, but he failed to comply with the court orders.
The court remarked that in the absence of record, which had been lost as reported by NAB, trial of the accused is not possible. Photostat documents were submitted before the court, which were not even attested. And under such circumstances the court was left with no option but to accept the acquittal plea by the accused. The question is why NAB did not submit attested copies? Since the apex court had ordered former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to write letter to the Swiss authorities about immunity of then president Asif Zardari in regard to this case, it must have been done on the basis of original documents. It was on November 26, 2013, when the AC Islamabad reopened the pending references against Asif Zardari after the expiry of his presidential immunity. Earlier, the court had rejected the acquittal pleas, but the petitioner then filed applications for rehearing, which were accepted.
The PPP has been complaining that NAB is investigating and pursuing cases only against its leaders. It is perhaps in this backdrop that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) decided to hold an inquiry into allegations of ‘corruption, corrupt practices and misuse of authority’ against PML-N Punjab provincial minister Rana Mashhood and other accused. Reportedly, it has been done after the NAB found something credible in a complaint lodged against him in Rs.20 billion scam related to youth festival held last year. The decision was taken in a meeting of the NAB’s executive board on Thursday presided over by NAB Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry. He approved two fresh investigations against former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, who is already facing eight corruption references. He and Shahid Rafi, a former secretary of the department, and others have been accused of causing a loss of Rs. 892.6 million to the national exchequer.
The second investigation will be conducted against Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Shahid Rafi, Fazal Ahmad Khan, a former managing director of the Pakistan Electric Power Company, Rafiq Butt, a former chief executive officer of the Northern Power Generation Company, and Ejaz Babar, a former finance director of the organization. They have been accused of corruption, corrupt practices and misuse of authority in the award of a contract to M/s Young Gen Power to install a 150MW rental power plant along Satiyana Road in Faisalabad, causing a loss of Rs435.7 million to the kitty. It has to be reiterated that Supreme Court of Pakistan was not satisfied with NAB’s performance. In August 2015, the Supreme Court had decided to constitute a commission to oversee and evaluate the performance of National Accountability Bureau and progress on mega corruption scams.
But what is more regrettable is the failure of the NAB to take the pending cases to their logical conclusion. Whatever movement is seen, it is because of the pressure of the apex court otherwise the NAB would not have presented the list of those involved in mega scandals. Though the corruption is widespread and has eaten into the vitals of society, the NAB doesn’t seem very active to deal with the corrupt. If one goes through the latest annual report of the NAB, corruption is not a serious problem and the government is doing all what it is supposed to do. Similarly, although the PML-N and PPP leaders claim that cases against them were politically-motivated, neither party got them discharged during their tenures, as such a step would have provided opportunity to its political adversary to put it on the mat. Analysts say the NAB will never be able to perform its functions honestly unless it was given full autonomy and its high-ups were free from government pressures.
