KARACHI: Senator Saeed Ghani of Pakistan People's Party has said that amendments in laws governing the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) should be made through parliament instead of promulgating an ordinance for the purpose.
The PPP Karachi leader and senator stated this while speaking at a press conference held here at the Media Cell of the People's Party on Saturday. Also on the occasion, a leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and central president of PTI’s labour wing Zubair Khan announced to join the PPP along with his political associates.
Senator Ghani said on the occasion that the People's Party had reservations on the method adopted by the government to do further legislation on the NAB law through an ordinance. Instead, the government should bring such changes through parliament.
He said the authority of NAB to do “plea bargain” from the person guilty of doing corruption was beyond his comprehension. He said that in 2008, the PPP’s government at that time had intended to introduce changes in the NAB law but the then opposition PML-N had impeded the effort.
He said the present government of PML-N had intended to give credit to the prime minister by making changes in the NAB law through an ordinance instead of doing the same job through parliament.
He said the authority of NAB chairman to make decisions for accepting the offer of “Voluntary Return” (of the embezzled amount from a person accused of doing corruption) should be preferably withdrawn and “VR” should not be carried out without court’s orders.
While responding to a question concerning the 21st Constitutional Amendment, the PPP’s senator himself raised a question asking the government as to what reforms the government had introduced in the existing system of the judiciary as the term of military trial courts in the country had just expired.
He raised this question saying that at the time of introduction of the 21st Amendment, it had been stated by the government that the existing judicial system was not strong and it could not punish the jet-black terrorists. In the meantime, reforms would be introduced in the judicial system. Now it is time that the government should be asked as to what changes it had introduced in this regard, he said.
As per the commitment of the government, the judicial system should have been reformed till the expiry of the term of military courts, said the PPP senator.
He said the Government of Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) had failed to fulfil its commitment in this regard.
He said that when the previous federal government of PPP had tried to introduce the tax amnesty scheme, the incumbent Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar at that time had opposed the scheme. Ishaq Dar should now apologise for opposing the tax amnesty scheme of the PPP government as the present federal govt itself was about to introduce its fourth such amnesty scheme. The PPP senator welcomed the leader and activists of PTI as they announced to leave their parent political party to join the People's Party.
Zubair Khan, who announced leaving the PTI, thanked the leadership of PPP for giving honour to him and his associates.
He said that Tehreek-e-Insaf had been raised by poor activists but now the poor activists had abandoned the PTI Chairman Imran Khan. He said that the control of PTI had been taken over by politicians who do politics of “drawing rooms”.
He said that more people associated with the PTI would join the People's Party in future as well. He said that activists of PTI belonging to 13 districts of Sindh were willing to join the PPP. He said that Imran Khan used the poor people but the PTI chairman had forgotten the time when he had the support of mere 50 followers of his political party.
He said the founding members of PTI who had primarily supported Imran Khan were now nowhere to be seen. He said that Imran Khan had failed to do justice with activists of his own party. He said the PTI chapter in Karachi had almost closed.