LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) told an accountability court on Tuesday that it could not ‘actively’ pursue corruption cases during the last PPP regime because of ‘political pressure’.

The revelation came from NAB during a hearing of a stock exchange scam involving PPP senior leader Qasim Zia.

Interestingly, the PPP, now in opposition, is accusing the NAB of working under the pressure of the PML-N government to victimise its opponents.

A last week court order, declining further physical remand of Mr Zia to the NAB, showed that the inquiry initiated against the PPP leader in 2008 was delayed due to the pressure exerted by the party then ruling in Centre.

Responding to a court query about the inordinate delay in the probe, the NAB Punjab investigating officer, Shaharyar Jamil, bluntly said: “Since the PPP had been in the power for the last five years, the NAB could not take any effective step in this matter.”

The accountability court judge, Abdul Sattar, termed the reply quite shocking and regrettable, the document revealed.

The court also expressed its concern when the officer said the matter was still being probed and during the physical remand of Mr Zia the bureau remained unable to recover the alleged looted money or unearth financial assets of the accused or his benamidars (surrogate property owners).

Mr Zia is now behind the bars on judicial remand and his bail petition is pending adjudication before a Lahore High Court bench.

The NAB accused Mr Zia and four other directors of Ali Usman Securities, a brokerage house, of committing a fraud to the tune of Rs80 million with public at large.

It said the accused persons received cash for buying shares of various companies in their names but transferred the money to their own accounts.

Published in Dawn, September 2nd, 2015

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