Govt shows no interest in reforming anti-corruption bodies

ISLAMABAD: Apex court’s repeated no-confidence in the anti-corruption state apparatus including NAB and FIA has failed to attract the attention of the government, which remains unmoved to reform such institutions for fair and across-the-board accountability.

Only in the Panama Papers case, presently being heard by the Supreme Court, the honorable judges have lamented quite a few times that all concerned government institutions are not interested in probing the allegations made in the Panama Papers.

While hearing the case, the chief justice of Pakistan had remarked on last Tuesday that Supreme Court had to consider hearing Panama Papers Case as no concerned institution was moving ahead with investigations into the revelations made in Panama Papers.

Interestingly the top anti-corruption state entity – NAB -- had told the apex court that it was beyond the Bureau’s scope to probe Panama Papers leakswhich besides others involved three members of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s family. The NAB had stated that action under the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999, without prima facie evidence about the commission of an offence, would be premature. The apex court bench, headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, had expressed its dismay over the NAB’s stance on the issue and called its reply disappointing.

On one occasion during the hearing of the case, Justice Asif Saeed Khosa regretted, “We have your message loud and clear that no authority wants to take action in this matter, and now, we will attend to it.”

Allegations of tax evasion, illegal remittances from Pakistan, suspected siphoning off of capital through various companies registered in Pakistan into offshore companies could also be investigated by relevant stakeholders, including the FIA, Federal Board of Revenue, the State Bank of Pakistan and the Securities Exchange Commission of Pakistan. However, no meaningful probe has been done by any of these institutions to the satisfaction of the apex court.

Before the apex court, the Public Accounts Committee pressed these institutions and had even summoned the top management of NAB, FIA, FBR, SECP and State Bank of Pakistan to get the Panama Papers matter probed but failed.

The Panama Papers issue remained a “closed chapter” for all relevant Pakistani authorities including NAB, FIA, State Bank of Pakistan and FBR. The FBR took up the matter following extreme pressure from politicians and media but only after a lapse of almost five months. The two top most anti-corruption state institutions -- NAB and FIA -- however never bothered even to consider initiation of any inquiry into this scam.

Because of the inaction of these politicized state institutions, the opposition had to pursue the options like knocking the doors of the apex court or setting up of judicial commission. However, there is no attention being paid to the reformation of these institutions to enable them work independently. With government showing no interest in institution building and the opposition also not keenly pursuing the goal of reforming the institution, all eyes are set on the Supreme Court to direct the regime to depoliticize these state entities in a specified time-frame.