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ISLAMABAD: The controversial decision of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to strike a plea bargain deal with a top bureaucrat from Balochistan has brought the government and the opposition on the same page on the issue of changing the controversial laws which allow NAB to strike such deals with the accused in corruption cases.
Hours after the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) called for abolition of NAB over its alleged failure to eliminate corruption from the country, the government’s media managers declared that they were committed to scrapping the controversial provision of the plea bargain through a new legislation.
On the other hand, taking the first practical step after NAB’s controversial decision, Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani referred the matter to the law and justice committee of the house to look and suggest measures to do away with this power given to NAB.
“The entire question of accountability needs to be seen afresh,” Mr Rabbani said when the issue was raised by PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar in the Senate.
Bureau slammed for striking plea bargain deal with corrupt bureaucrat
The Executive Board of NAB in its meeting on Wednesday had accepted the plea bargain request of Balochistan bureaucrat Mushtaq Ahmed Raisani for Rs2 billion. Besides Mr Raisani, NAB had also accepted the same request of Sohail Majeed Shah, a contractor and an alleged frontman of Khalid Lango, a former adviser to the Balochistan chief minister, for Rs960 million.
Earlier, NAB had itself put Mr Raisani’s corruption figure at Rs40bn, but on Thursday it claimed that the amount was less than the reported figure.
Mushtaq Raisani, the then finance secretary of Balochistan, hit the headlines in May this year when NAB seized over Rs730 million hard cash from his house in Quetta hours after he was taken into custody.
“It made me sick when I came to know about it,” the Senate chairman said, after Mr Babar questioned the timing of such a decision by NAB.
“Why this plea bargain with this particular person and in this particular time,” Mr Babar woundered, reminding that NAB had made the decision despite the fact that the Supreme Court in October had stopped the NAB chairman from exercising such powers.
Criticising the decision, PTI chairman Imran Khan said that NAB had now become an institution to promote corruption, instead of eliminating the menace.
“Mushtaq Raisani’s plea bargain with NAB to clear his Rs40bn corruption by paying only Rs2bn shows that NAB is now promoting corruption,” Mr Khan posted on his official social website.
Talking to Dawn, PTI’s vice-chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi termed NAB’s decision the biggest joke with the nation which had already been facing the brunt of the unchecked corruption in the country.
Mr Qureshi expressed surprise as to how NAB could give a clean chit to a person, who had been caught red-handed. He said the accountability process had now become a sham and time had come that the government introduce a transparent and judicious accountability system in the country.
PTI information secretary Naeemul Haq said in a statement that NAB should be abolished after this shameful act.
Meanwhile, prime minister’s adviser Musaddiq Malik blamed former military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf’s regime for introducing the controversial provision of plea bargain in the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) in 1999.
“We are making our efforts to replace the controversial NAO into a new accountability law for which a proposed bill had been tabled in the parliament,” Mr Malik said at a news conference.
He said that under the new accountability bill, all its grey areas would be reviewed and it would be ensured that no corrupt person escaped the law of the land.
“This is not the way that a person who is caught red-handed in a multi-billion-rupee corruption case is cleared so easily,” the adviser said, adding that the government would definitely take action on this plea bargain deal.
Published in Dawn, December 23rd, 2016
