Plea bargain a serious issue, says Rabbani

Relevant House body to look into matter; senators demand
Nisar step down after Quetta commission report

ISLAMABAD: Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani Thursday slammed the National Accountability (NAB) for clearing a bureaucrat, facing Rs40 billion corruption and asked the House panel on law and justice to look into Section 25-A of NAB Ordinance pertaining to voluntary return (plea bargain) as it was a serious issue.

Speaking on a point of public importance, PPP’s Senator Farhatullah Babar said that for him it was the saddest day as a corrupt bureaucrat, who had admitted of corruption after billions of rupees were recovered from his residence, had been  given a clean chit by NAB.

Senator Babar continued that a man who was caught red handed in massive corruption, had just been cleared by the top anti-graft body for Rs2 billion under the plea bargain and voluntary return, which has put the whole country into shame.

He recalled that Supreme Court in its order on October 24, had ordered chairman NAB that he would not use the plea bargain option while recovering the corruption money, but with this decision, the NAB chap has proved that he is a man of his own.

Babar asserted, “this is violation of apex court ruling which clearly directed that NAB chairman can not sue the voluntary return section, but he is bent upon promoting the menace of corruption instead of preventing it which is a point to ponder”.

Rabbani, who said that he would give opportunity to all the senators to speak on the issue Friday, but with a heavy heart, said: “It’s has made me sick, as NAB has totally failed our system”.

He said that Section 25-A of NAB Ordinance that deals with voluntary return, needed to be looked into, adding the issue was referred to law and justice committee that comprises prominent lawyers, to work on it in light of Supreme Court verdict.

Rabbani directed the House panel to look into the matter threadbare especially the Section 25-A, and report back to the House on January 09, so that legislation in this regard could be initiated    

Senators also asked Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan to step down or the government should kick him out, following the Justice Faez Isa commission report on Quetta massacre, saying otherwise the nation and Pakistan will weep.

Though Nisar was not around, the treasury benches retaliated by asking on what moral ground the opposition sought his resignation, as their past was tainted with corruption, US special forces had raided in Abbottabad and the Supreme Court report charge-sheeted some parties of having militant wings, extortion, etc.

The minister was slammed for saying he had nothing to do if the delegation of the Defence of Pakistan Council also included a banned outfit’s leader and that he did not know, who allowed him to be a part of it and who permitted a proscribed group to hold a convention here. The opposition senators asked the government to implement the report instead of indulging in a blamegame with rivals.

Prior to the state minister for interior Muhammad Balighur Rehman rose from his seat to conclude the debate, Chairman Senate Raza Rabbani said that the interior minister had the opportunity to give his stance on the report and deplored that they themselves were weakening the parliament.

Baligh said Nisar in his press conference had already presented his government’s point of view on the matter. He also presented the latest updates and his government’s performance on the implementation of 20-point National Action Plan (NAP). 

Legislators were told that against 633 vacant posts (from BPS-7 to BPS-16) in the Utility Stores Corporation (USC), the National Testing Service (NTS) had conducted tests of ‘48,674 unemployed persons and pocketed nearly Rs. 20 million’ as fee. But the posts were subsequently not filled owing to financial health of the corporation.

During the question hour, Minister for Industries and Production Ghulam Murtaza Jatoi said that NTS called 21079 candidates for tests in 2015 and 27595 in 2016 and initial screening test was qualified by 3165 candidates, who were to be interviewed afterwards. However, it was observed that most of these, who had qualified the test were not having relevant experience and required length of experience for the post applied.

Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal, speaking on behalf of the minister for industries, said that indeed the decision not to induct persons, had caused disappointment but promised this would not be repeated in future. He also said that he would have to check, whether or not the test fee could be reimbursed.

Finance Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar told the Senate that during the first quarter of financial year 2016-2017, home remittances dropped by 5.4 per cent to US dollars 4,698.31 million compared with dollars 4,965.81 million previous year. However, as a result of positive growth in remittances in October 2016, cumulative decline in home remittances was recorded at 3.8 per cent during the four months of 2016-2017 (July-October) over the same period of last year.

The minister explained that sharp decline in oil prices for extended period was mainly responsible for the decline in remittances  as Gulf Cooperation Council region had a dominating share of around 63 per cent in total home remittance inflows. He added money service businesses in Britain and Australia were facing problems in transferring funds owing to closure of bank accounts as banks adopted wholesale de-risking policy in these jurisdictions.