Parliamentary panel fails to make headway on new accountability law

ISLAMABAD: The Parliamentary Committee on New Accountability Laws  on Wednesday once again failed to make any headway on the new accountability laws with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Jamaat-e-Islami refusing  to accept the government’s bill, while the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) was absent from the meeting.

The PTI said that the family of the public office holder should also be brought under the ambit of the anti-corruption law while the government wanted to restrict it only to the public office holders. The meeting was chaired by Law Minister Zahid Hamid. The committee also failed to reach a consensus on the procedure of filing a corruption reference against an accused. 

Dr Shireen Mazari told media persons that the family of the public office holders should also be brought under the ambit of the new accountability laws but the government did not agree. “The government wants to give protection to the Sharif family through the new law,” she feared.

Zahid Hamid said the government wanted that instead of the chairman NAB, the Accountability Commission would decide on the filing of a reference against an accused. He said the decision to keep NAB in its current form or replace it with the National Accountability Commission would be taken after a vote.

The law minister said the meeting discussed punishments for corruption and corrupt practices and it was proposed that not only those who do corruption but also those who let corruption happen will also be punished and the final decision in this regard would be taken in the next meeting. The parliamentary committee has been summoned for another meeting tomorrow (Friday).