Govt, PPP bills are for public consumption

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), supported by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and the government have chosen their favourite parliamentary chambers where they have comfortable majority to move their respective proposed legislation, seeking investigation into the offshore companies.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is moving its bill to replace the Pakistan Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1956 in the National Assembly on Friday because it has complete control over this chamber. The federal cabinet has given a nod to the effect.

The PPP has numerical superiority in the Senate that it selected to move its Panama Papers Inquiry Bill. Assisted by some other parliamentary groups, it can easily approve the bill in the Upper House of Parliament.

What will finally happen is clear even now - the government will be successful in getting its bill passed in the National Assembly and will then  transmit it to the Senate; and the PPP will be able to approve its proposed legislation in the Senate to send it to the other chamber.

The two bills will then be stuck up as neither the PPP-controlled Upper House will okay the other bill nor will the PML-N-controlled National Assembly approve the other draft. This whole exercise will be futile with no immediate prospects of an early probe into the offshore companies, identified in the Panama Papers disclosures or detected otherwise. Even otherwise, the Panama leaks issue has gone away from the public and political radar screen because of the vacillation of the two sides to constitute the appropriate forum.

After their failure to resume the deadlocked dialogue in the ambit of the bipartisan parliamentary committee, they have adopted this trajectory of moving their bills in the parliament. This is just for public consumption and will produce no worthwhile result.

Instead of restarting talks, both sides have already approached either the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) or the National Assembly Speaker or both, calling for disqualification of each other’s top leaders for hiding assets through offshore companies. Besides, the PTI is engaged in a public campaign and is organizing its next show on September 3 from Gujranwala to Lahore.

The battle of references and protest movement obscured the real issue and reflected lack of seriousness and sincerity to actual inquiry into dubious offshore shells. This became greatly apparent when the parleys hit stalemate marred with the absence of willingness to restore the process.

A natural corollary of this conflicting exercise may be that the two parties may agree to sit together and try to marry the two bills to come out with a consensus draft. But given their inflexible positions, it will be a miracle if they reach an accord on the new legislation and the Terms of Reference (ToRs).

There is nothing new in the texts of the two bills as they are the same that were made public by them earlier when their talks had broken down. PPP leader Aitzaz Ahsan says his bill does not discriminate; checks illegal flight of capital from Pakistan and the trend of stashing money in foreign accounts especially about 630 people named in Panama Papers; proposes a forensic audit of foreign accounts and binds people and members of their family to appear before the investigation authorities.

The government says its bill seeks investigation into mega corruption allegations in the light of the Supreme Court direction. While the PPP and PTI have agreed to speak with one voice on the bill in the parliament, their other opposition colleagues do not share their stand. However, negotiations, if resumed, will be tough between the government and PPP backed by the PTI on the two bills to make a unanimous document.

As is evident, the Supreme Court is unlikely to intervene and accept any ToRs for the judicial commission unless the two parties have total consensus. It became immensely clear when the court refused to entertain separate petitions of the Jamaat-e-Islami and PTI.

While returning the government’s ToRs, the court had sought a specific list of individuals and companies to be investigated. It had rubbished the existing law dubbing it as toothless for such kind of inquiry. While approaching the court, every side will be required to keep in view its observations and perimeters.