Once again, acting through a presidential ordinance, as it has been doing regularly the PTI government has made major alterations to the National Accountability Ordinance 1999 under which NAB had been set up. The organization will now be able to take up cases only when corrupt practices exceed Rs500 million. It will also be prevented from acting against bureaucrats, businessmen and industrialists – with the FBR, FIA and other agencies now likely to look into issues concerning them. In effect, NAB will now engage only in the scrutiny of public office holders, and essentially this means politicians. Bureaucrats and the business community had in recent months both made complaints about NAB pressure on them and stated it prevented them from performing their duties without fear. NAB officials will also no longer be allowed to issue public statements, any arrest of government officials will have to go through a scrutiny body and the remand period for NAB has been changed from 90 days to 14 days.
The possibility of changes in the NAB law had been under discussion for some time. The question is why these changes, at least some of which were certainly necessary, were not put before parliament where they could be discussed openly and the views of political parties from all sides of the divide taken on board. The reluctance of the government to even acknowledge a parliament exists by refusing to place proposed laws before it removes the element of transparency which is especially essential in the case of accountability laws. This lack of transparency has been a concern since NAB was formed during the regime of Gen Pervez Musharraf. The matter has since come up again and again. Unless people are confident that justice is being fairly delivered without any bias, it serves no purpose at all.
In this regard, the initial actions taken by the FIA which has now been granted new life will once more raise concern. Analysts have already noticed that the first action taken by the FIA was a raid on the PML-N Secretariat in Lahore and its multimedia cell. The amendment in NAB’s laws may mean that the frenzied activity we had seen from it over the past months may be somewhat reduced. In what has been widely criticised by the opposition, Prime Minister Imran Khan has said the amendments will ‘insulate’ businessmen and allow them to proceed with their affairs. We will need to see what the other impacts of the law are as legal experts have pointed out that the country’s accountability laws have been a consistent source of controversy – and this controversy has not ended yet.