IT is a headline that makes you do a double take. The FIA is now investigating NAB on the Broadsheet scandal that erupted some months ago and in which Pakistan has had to pay a steep amount because of the mishandling of the issue. It is ironical that the organisation that has been probing the affairs and lives of countless bodies and citizens is now under investigation for possible acts of omission and commission.

It is too early to tell if the FIA, no paragon of professional excellence itself, has the ability, capacity and resolve to investigate a powerful organisation like NAB. But irony aside, the FIA must get to the bottom of the sordid Broadsheet affair and pinpoint who over the years within NAB has been responsible for the situation we have landed in.

NAB had in its initial years signed a contract with a foreign-based company to recover proceeds of crime and corruption from abroad. The text of the agreement was so shoddy, or shady, that the company could later claim millions of pounds in damages from NAB. Over the years, many other NAB officials, either wilfully or incompetently, mishandled contracts, negotiations and commitments for which Pakistan was forced to pay huge sums of money in damages.

Explainer: Politics fuels the Broadsheet narrative

Since the scandal surfaced, hardly anyone has been held responsible and penalised. The FIA now has an opportunity to defy its soiled reputation as a handmaiden of governments and act as a professional investigating agency that can override pressures and bring the guilty NAB officials to justice. People in NAB responsible for incurring such losses to the taxpayer due to their alleged corruption, ill-intent or incompetence must not be allowed to evade justice. The government may need to commit publicly that it will fully support the FIA in holding NAB accountable and not succumb to pressure that NAB may exert.

Prime Minister Imran Khan has been fully supportive of the chairman NAB even though under him the organisation’s credibility has further eroded. One-sided accountability has been the hallmark of NAB and more so since the PTI government came into power. Mr Khan should now state publicly that NAB must submit to scrutiny and hold itself to account through the FIA. The NAB chairman too should commit to full cooperation with the investigation. If NAB is not open to punishing its own black sheep, it has no moral right to hold others to account.

Published in Dawn, November 22nd, 2021