How NAB can be reformed

I strongly believe if those responsible for distributing money and those accepting the same to manipulate the 1990 elections had been punished and convicted in the most high profile Asghar Khan case, accountability and election process in the country would have been more transparent and doors for ‘political engineering’ could have been curtailed, if not stopped.

Last year, the FIA recommended closure of the case for want of evidence, which was quite surprising but since then the name of ‘accountability’ has been used for politicization, corrupt rulers, civilian or non-civilian, are emerging as the main beneficiaries.

The dilemma in Pakistan is not merely power but misuse of that power. From 1947, Prevention of Corruption Act to National Accountability Act, 1999, laws were used to prolong rules and target opponents.

Unfortunately, successive rulers used and brought laws which suited them and with the passage of time politicized every institution.

The formation of National Accountability Bureau, NAB, after Oct 12th, 1999 military coup was in the follow-up of the 1997 Ehtesab Bureau, which was headed by former senator Saifur Rehman. Both have their own aims and objectives. While the former targeted the past governments of PPP and PML-N from 1988 to 1999, the latter initiated cases against the PPP.

Even departments and organizations like FIA or Anti-Corruption Departments became more corrupt and all this gave rise to corrupt practices and in this our rulers led from the front. Thus, those who are protesting today, need to answer about their own conduct while those who are sitting in the government have a job to do to make the institutions like NAB independent and not just to use them to target the opposition.

From voluntary return of money to plea-bargain hardly brought the desired result. On the contrary, it turned out to be like a ‘bailed-out package’ for the accused. Interestingly, in the recent case of Rs16 billion in the illegal land case of ‘Fazaia Housing project’ the term ‘refund’ has been used, which a sitting senior NAB official said should have been declared as plea-bargain. But, at least victims are getting their money back. But, were those responsible punished?

Talking to some of the sitting and former NAB officers and senior lawyers, one gathers the basic flaw in NAB is its own structure and the procedure of appointments and powers. It is one of the rare institutions where even officers from Grade 17 to 21, were directly appointed instead of coming from the Federal Public Service Commission. All this gave rise to incompetence.

If one probes into the appointments in NAB in the last 20 years, you might get shocking results. No wonder why NAB is unable to deliver. Right or wrong, was there any inquiry against the chairman when some serious accusations were levelled against him? Similarly, was there any inquiry against the former chairman for not doing much and if so, why? It was also revealed that in the last tenure, massive recruitments in NAB were made on ‘sifarish’ of those under scrutiny at the moment.

When former president retired General Pervez Musharraf formed the NAB and appointed a well reputed officer, Lt. General Amjad, he accepted the job on condition of non-interference.

But, the day he (Musharraf) intervened and asked the chairman to withdraw the reference of a high profile person, the latter, instead of accepting his orders, quit the institution, which lost its credibility and could not recover as successive chairmen compromised and not one of them was himself made accountable for not doing much of putting high profile inquires under the carpet.

So, what should be done is a ‘million dollar’ question. There is no doubt that in the last three or four decades, there has been massive corruption in almost all the institutions, civilian or non-civilian, and also perhaps in the institution like NAB, because of its weak structure and lack of capacity to handle such cases. Thus, with the passage of time, we witnessed how successive chairmen of NAB, with unbridled powers, became vulnerable and compromised.

In order to find out how NAB could be reformed and what really went wrong with it, I contacted some senior sitting and former NAB officers to find out the basic flaws and how it could be improved. Ideally, Pakistan needs a forum which could do across-the-board accountability of all those who matter.

Abolishing the NAB is no solution as there is hardly any credible ‘anti-graft’ institution. But, at the same time, drastic reforms could make it a more effective and meaningful institution, started from the very selection process of the chairman, followed by his unprecedented powers and then the direct appointments of NAB officers, even up to Grade-21, unlike in other institutions where from Grade-17 and above, it comes through Federal Public Service Commission.

Therefore, if the very selection of the team by the so-called ‘selectors’ would have serious flaws, it is natural that adverse effects would come on its performance. If such an institution doesn't hire people on merit, how could you expect them to do jobs on merit?

Thus, the parliament needs to revisit the NAB Ordinance to make the institution more independent and powerful. While the basic idea behind the selection of the chairman through consensus by the prime minister and the leader of the opposition were not bad but there is no criteria defined about the merit of the selection. Secondly, the chairmen often got compromised with the government of the day and thus the opposition became his prime target.

“Delegation of powers from chairman to the directors level is needed when it comes to initiating any inquiry, reference or arrest. At present, the boss has all the powers and government of the day just needs to tackle one person and the whole accountability process gets compromised,” one of the senior NAB officers disclosed on condition of anonymity. There is no doubt that NAB's performance, as compared to other anti-graft bodies like the Anti-Corruption Department, is much better but how much corruption has been curtailed, it is disappointing, he added.

A senior lawyer suggested that the NAB needed to differentiate between the policy decision and the crime committed before initiating an inquiry against any minister or prime minister. The arrest should only be allowed if the NAB investigators have enough evidences which in majority of cases were not found and people got released after being kept for over one or two years. “In white-collar crime, you need relevant documents before you are arrested and NAB's performance in this regard was highly disappointing as could be seen in the number of judgments of superior courts in case of those booked by NAB,” he said.

“If there is a will, there is always a way and perhaps we are lacking that will,” a former director of NAB revealed on condition of anonymity.

NAB can only become an effective and meaningful body if amendments are made in the selection criterion of the chairman NAB, followed by delegation of powers, then the process of appointment of other officers, prosecution process, arrest of suspect without much evidence as happened in a number of cases, the bail procedure and most importantly in the very making of reference. In most of the cases, NAB faced heavy criticism from the superior courts.

Since the prime minister and the leader of the opposition have powers to pick and agree on any person as chairman without defining the criteria, made chairman more vulnerable and thus history shows that the chairman was often compromised and the result is before us.

Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government came into power on the slogan of ‘accountability’ and not merely on accountability of its opponents. They need to reform the NAB law in a manner in which it becomes a strong institution for the time to come and not only bring reforms, which suit them.

The tenure of the present chairman would end in October, and as Imran Khan in the past used to oppose the policy of ‘extension,’ it’s better that his government should set some criteria for the selection of NAB officers from top to bottom.

The writer is a senior analyst and columnist of GEO, The News and Jang

Twitter:@MazharAbbasGEO