A serious mistake

On Monday, National Accountability Bureau Chairman Justice (r) Javed Iqbal put out a shocking statement ordering an inquiry into the alleged laundering of $4.9 billion to India by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and other unnamed individuals. The press release quoted the World Bank’s Migration and Remittance Book 2016 to substantiate these sensational allegations. It took most discerning minds to see the ludicrous nature of the allegations and pretty soon we had an equally bizarre story of just how the inquiry had been launched. Apparently, the country’s premier accountability organisation’s source was a four-month old newspaper column by an unknown writer. How did said column find itself on the desk of the NAB chairman so many months later? And if the allegations had reached NAB four months ago, then surely it would have done some initial investigation – which would involve a simple Google search and reading the disowned World Bank report that was cited as evidence. Both the World Bank and the State Bank of Pakistan had publicly discredited the figures two years ago. Not only this, the World Bank also felt the need to issue a new press release after NAB’s inquiry announcement to clarify that that it did not have reliable data to calculate remittances from Pakistan to India, that it does not name individuals, and, frankly, that this not how remittances work. You don’t need to be a financial expert to know this.

For the premier anti-corruption body in the country to fall for such an obvious hoax is a serious blow to its credibility. All it had to do to avoid embarrassing itself was to either check the report itself or only stop for a moment to think about the credibility of the charges. Nawaz Sharif’s reaction to NAB’s serious faux pas has been expected and inevitable. In a press conference on Thursday, the former prime minister gave the NAB chairman 24 hours to bring proof of allegations or apologise and resign. Many will also ask how and why newspaper columns have become the basis of accountability cases, and how the accountability bureau can announce a public inquiry into such serious allegations without prior investigation. The anti-corruption agency should be busy pursuing real cases rather than wasting its time on such ludicrous charges. Its real job should be to build corruption cases on verifiable charges, not mere speculation. It is also a fact that in an age of fake news, now that these baseless rumours have the imprimatur of NAB on them, many will take them to be the gospel truth. The right way out of this mess is for the bureau to explain the steps that led to the press release being issued and the individuals responsible for drafting it. NAB can only be effective if it is seen as non-partisan and scrupulous, and at the moment it has taken a serious hit to its credibility.