National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Javed Iqbal said on Thursday that if “the leader of the opposition in National Assembly can appear before the bureau, then the leader of the treasury benches has no right to skip NAB proceedings”. The NAB chairman said this during his visit to the bureau’s office in Lahore. He rejected the impression that NAB had ever faced “pressure to deal with the ruling regime with a soft approach”. “NAB is not associated with any organisation, political party or any government,” he remarked, adding that the accountability watchdog would “never take an excessive or revenge measures”. The chairman added that NAB is only loyal to Pakistan and its people. “If someone has committed a crime then he will have to face the consequences. No one can stop NAB from taking legal action,” he added. He said NAB will never become a party to any National Reconciliation Ordinance. “All politicians are equal in the eyes of NAB. It is the only institution which succeeded in arresting corrupt elements and recovered looted money worth Rs 297 billion,” the chairman said. Moreover, the bureau has imposed a ban on foreign travelling of all NAB officers with immediate effect, except for the performance of Umrah. “Making schedules for visits abroad and reservation of tickets has also been stopped without the approval for leave by the competent authority,” read a statement issued by NAB. Separately, Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif skipped hearing of the case pertaining to Ramzan Sugar Mills in the Lahore’s accountability court. At the onset of the hearing, the counsel for Shehbaz Sharif told the court that his client was in Islamabad as a medical board had conducted a check-up of him on January 2 and refrained him from travelling. The judge Syed Najamul Hassan, directed NAB prosecutor to submit the reference against Shehbaz in the next hearing. NAB chief visited the Lahore office of the bureau where NAB Director General Shahzad Saleem briefed him regarding cases pertaining to mega corruption. Meanwhile, he reiterated his stance to return the looted wealth worth Rs 590 million to the victims of Ferozpur Housing Society. A few days earlier, he said that ‘accountability for all’ policy has started yielding its results and the institution was absolutely committed to root out corruption with iron hands. “Corruption is mother of all evils and NAB officers are doubling their efforts in nabbing corrupt elements,” he said. “NAB is the only organisation in the world which has prescribed time frame for disposal of cases in 10 months for investigation of white collar crimes,” he added. He said that NAB has devised Monitoring & Evaluation System in order to monitor NAB performance of NAB and all regional bureaus in qualitative and quantitative term which has proved very successful. Javed Iqbal said that Prime Minister Imran Khan does not enjoy immunity from anti-graft body’s probe. “People are naive to think that we have insulted prime minister. In fact the case against him shows the supremacy of law in Pakistan and it has increased the honour of the premier,” he said while speaking at an event. “If the leader of the opposition can face such probes then the premier also doesn’t have the immunity from NAB probe.” The premier promised to end financial malpractices from Pakistan, the action is a first step towards materialising the promise. Published in Daily Times, January 11th 2019.