THE National Accountability Bureau chairman Adm (retd) Fasih Bokhari has been handed a golden opportunity by the Supreme Court of Pakistan to prove his credentials as he has been entrusted with the investigation into the seemingly inexplicable Rs26.5bn loss suffered by the Pakistan Steel Mills in 2008-09. Few recall that the admiral, then the senior-most services chief, quit his job in 1999 on a point of principle when prime minister Nawaz Sharif, in a desperate attempt to mend fences with his defiant army chief Gen Pervez Musharraf, also made the latter joint chiefs of staff committee chairman, effectively superseding the admiral. One hopes that it is principles that will guide him in this affair as well, since his is an office that requires utmost neutrality at all times — even if the organisation he heads has often been accused of bias and of carrying out witch-hunts.

The Pakistan Steel Mills is one of the largest public-sector employers, a national asset and the cornerstone on which the industrial indigenisation policy of the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto era was to be built. But it has almost always been poorly managed. More recently, it has been seen as a goldmine to be plundered at will by those close to government circles. Sadly, its current predicament appears no different to that of the national flag carrier and the Railways. All three organisations have been pretty much bled to death due to corruption, political interference and bad management, amidst a host of other factors. The decline in these key strategic national institutions has been so dramatic that while once these could set the private sector’s heart racing, now they aren’t even considered worth a second glance. Over the three months given to him by the apex court, the NAB chief can alter the course of history by assigning responsibility, recovering the ‘looted’ money and securing the conviction of the guilty. If the court’s directions are implemented with honesty of purpose, NAB could establish the principle that professionals not cronies are required to run and revamp public-sector corporations that have almost fallen apart.