ISLAMABAD: The four-stage consultations that were to start on Saturday to firm up the “reforms” in the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) law were interrupted as the person who was to chair the first discussion was hit by COVID-19.
The National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser was going to preside the meeting of the government committee comprising Adviser to the Prime Minister on Parliamentary Affairs and noted constitutional expert Babar Awan, Special Assistant Shahzad Akbar and federal ministers including Asad Umar and Farogh Naseem.
Not only the speaker was affected by the coronavirus but his son and daughter were also infected and have quarantined themselves. “The meeting is unlikely to be held because of the speaker’s illness,” a senior government representative told The News. “We had planned to move ahead on the NAB law reforms but the process is affected for the time being.”
After the finalisation of the reforms by this committee, the federal government planned to discuss it with coalition partners so that a consensus emerges within the ruling alliance. The third phase of the process was to lay the draft before the representatives of the opposition parties to get their feedback and input. After securing their opinion, the draft of amendments in the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO), 1999 was to be put before the core committee of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
“We have been told that the government will put before us its proposed amendments next week,” a senior opposition leader told The News. The official representative said that after going through all the four stages, it would be decided whether a presidential ordinance would be promulgated to enforce the amendments or a bill would be moved in the Parliament for passage without any delay.
He said that if the government and opposition reach agreement, the bill would be tabled in the next session of the Parliament.
The representative said that the government was in a hurry to re-issue those amendments, which lapsed as the ordinance containing them could not be passed by the Parliament. It provided for exclusion of bureaucrats, public officeholders, taxation matters and procedural lapses, entailing no corruption, from the purview of the NAB. The legal cover was given to the actions of the civil servants and public officeholders (politicians) done in good faith and in discharge of duties and performance of official functions if their decisions did not bring to them any monetary gain, swelling their assets disproportionate to their known sources of income.
The ordinance was promulgated in end-December having the usual 120-day constitutional life, was primarily meant to infuse confidence in the bureaucrats and encourage them to take decisions and to not sit on files, affecting the government business. Prime Minister Imran Khan had reached this conclusion after publicly stating more than once that the civil servants were not taking decision due to NAB’s fear.
The ordinance stated that currently the NAB is dealing with a large number of inquiries and investigations in addition to handling mega corruption cases. Under the existing regime, a number of inquiries have been initiated against the public office holders and government servants on account of procedural lapses where no actual corruption is involved. This has enhanced NAB's burden and has also affected working of the federal government. The NAB, while assuming parallel jurisdiction, is also inquiring into matters pertaining to taxation, imposition of levies etc, and therefore interfering within the domain of taxation regulatory bodies. An act done in good faith and in discharge of duties and performance of official function will not constitute an office unless there is corroborative evidence of accumulation of any monetary benefit or asset which is disproportionate to the known sources of income or which cannot be reasonably accounted for.
