Daily Times

When the Supreme Court asked the NAB for a record of certain key recoveries of misappropriated funds that it has made over the last decade, many applauded the court’s commitment to accountability and rightly so.

Indeed, there is growing recognition that Pakistan has frequently sidestepped its responsibilities towards transparency and even restricted the public’s right to information in an effort to maintain its corrupt schemes. The result is an exclusive, non-participatory and non-transparent government system where a culture of secrecy and rampant corruption prevails upheld by a complex web of restrictive laws, rules and government restrictions.

The recent amendments to the NAB law only benefit the elite who incidentally have the most at stake. While it is true that those under investigation should never be harassed by law enforcement, they shouldn’t be allowed to walk away from their responsibilities to the state and the people they govern either. If an amendment makes it actively difficult for the court to establish that a certain individual has transgressed, then it is no longer doing its job.

Accountability bureaus work most effectively when they refrain from politicising those under investigation and apply the same standards and protocols to each case, regardless of the specific circumstances surrounding them. Indeed, the authenticity of such organisations needs to be called into question but only if it is followed by real, grass-roots level work that aims to enforce, not just advise.

While some of NAB’s amendments are an improvement such as the right to bail and decriminalization of executive decisions without strong evidence of corruption, the law has been conveniently changed to benefit those against whom lawsuits are still pending in superior courts, enduring their acquittal.

For the people of Pakistan, greater insight into the structure and functioning of government finances, as well as decisions on tax and spending, would enable them to better hold their elected representatives into account. In the end, political accountability is only possible to achieve through a democratic framework that values mechanisms such as free and fair elections and the workings of parliaments. Such accountability also results in a better quality of services, including health and education, at provincial and local levels. *