ISLAMABAD: As a federal minister on Tuesday stressed the need for reining in the anti-graft watchdog, a bill landed in the Senate seeking to amend the National Accountability Ordinance promulgated two decades ago by a military ruler.
Winding up a Senate discussion on denial of health facilities to former president Asif Ali Zardari amid allegations of opposition’s witch-hunt, Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Azam Swati said the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was not under government control and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) were facing the cases they had framed against each other.
He, however, said there was a need to rein in NAB. “What could you expect from NAB having 70-80 per cent of former chairman’s hand-picked employees?” he asked. Mr Swati said the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) had not made these cases and the government could not meddle in the affairs of NAB.
He said parliament was supreme and had the right to decide nobody would be investigated. “Let us clear the jails by releasing all the prisoners or have separate laws for the haves and have-nots,” he sarcastically said.
Bill seeking to amend accountability law lands in Senate
The issue had been raised in the house by PPP’s parliamentary leader in the Senate Sherry Rehman who demanded immediate shifting of Mr Zardari from jail to hospital in view of his health condition. She regretted that the former president had been sent to jail without doctors’ advice and his family members were not being allowed to see him, despite court orders. According to doctors, heart arteries of Mr Zardari were choked and he also had a backache, she said, alleging that the PPP leader was being victimised by the government and treated as a “hardened criminal”.
Leader of Opposition in the Senate Raja Zafarul Haq regretted that all that was happening to the detained politicians was painful, adding that the treatment with them should be in accordance with the law and as per normal practices.
He pointed out that jailed PML-N leader Rana Sanaullah was not allowed to attend the funeral of his father-in-law. He said the government’s treatment with the opposition was like the one of India with the people of occupied Kashmir.
Former interior minister Rehman Malik of the PPP said a curfew appeared to have been clamped on politicians and the coming generations would be averse to becoming a lawmaker. He said Mr Zardari could have been kept under house arrest instead of being thrown into prison. He warned the PTI government against setting the traditions which were bound to haunt it in future and predicted that the politicians belonging to the ruling party would also be acted against in the days ahead.
PPP Senator Maula Bux Chandio said it would have put across a good message had all the political leadership been with the prime minister during his address on Kashmir. “How can a former president who also heads a major political party be denied of his fundamental rights?” he asked.
Senator Javed Abbasi of the PML-N said that neither NRO [deal] had been sought nor the government had the guts to give one, adding that his party was not against accountability, but it should be across the board. He said anyone who joined the ruling coalition enjoyed immunity from accountability.
Later, former Senate chairman Farooq H. Naek of the PPP introduced a bill seeking to amend the NAB ordinance. The bill referred to the standing committee concerned proposes to set a minimum limit of Rs500 million for cases to be investigated by NAB, bar custodial investigations and take away the powers of arrest from the NAB chairman. It also proposes a plea bargain deal only through the court and barring NAB officers from making public statements about cases before the filing of a reference.
Azam Swati informed the house that the government was also in the process of bringing its own bill to amend the NAB ordinance, but did not oppose the opposition’s bill.
Various other bills, including the one seeking to amend the Constitution to increase the number of seats for Balochistan in the national and provincial assemblies, were also introduced in the Senate.
On a point of public importance, Raza Rabbani asked the chair to summon Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi to explain his interview with the BBC in which he said Pakistan was ready to hold talks with India. At a time when orgy of death and destruction was going on in occupied Kashmir, curfew had entered the 29th day and over 10,000 people had been arrested, how could the foreign minister make such a statement, he wondered.
He also criticised the Foreign Office’s decision to give detained Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav consular access at a time when access to medicines was being denied to the people of occupied Kashmir.
The Senate will meet again at 3.30pm on Wednesday (today).
