ISLAMABAD: The government is planning to enact a law to keep an eye on National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) activities, Irfan Siddiqui, special assistant to the prime minister, said on Wednesday.
Siddiqui clarified that NAB has not been threatened by the premier. Prime Minister Nawaz had a day earlier warned NAB against harassing honest government employees. “NAB must perform its duty responsibly. They barge into houses and offices of innocent people to harass them without looking into authenticity of cases,” the PM observed. He said he has brought this issue into NAB chairman’s notice, who must take action otherwise the government will initiate necessary legal action. In an interview, Siddiqui said the government of Pakistan has made an “exemplary” deal with Qatar for the import of LNG, “but NAB restored to its low-grade tactics to sabotage the LNG project”.
Claiming that NAB’s performance is zero, he said the watchdog works under the government and is answerable to it. Siddiqui further said since NAB is a government institution, therefore it is the responsibility of the government to improve its performance. “The system of the state cannot be run by arresting and harassing innocent people,” he added. “We have no objection to action against corrupt people, but NAB is harassing honest officials through various tactics,” he alleged. Meanwhile, in a press release issued on Wednesday, NAB said the non-interference policy of the government has helped it become an independent organisation.
It said it respects the opinion of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The press release added that the organisation inherited some problems and was speedily taking necessary measures to resolve them and the process of accountability would be further improved in light of the recommendations of the prime minister. Also, NAB Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry said on Wednesday that the organisation operates under the National Accountability Ordinance 1999, which extends to all of Pakistan, including FATA and Gilgit-Baltistan.
He said the bureau is committed to eradicating corruption from the country. He was visiting NAB Multan Regional Bureau to review its performance on the basis of annual inspection conducted by the Chairman’s Inspection & Monitoring Team (CI&MT) of NAB Multan Bureau. CI&MT was deputed to conduct annual inspection of NAB Multan Regional Bureau for the year 2015. The annual inspection was carried out from February 15 to February 17, 2016 in order to review and evaluate the performance of NAB Multan Bureau on the basis of newly introduced Partly Quantified Grading System (PQGS).
