After submitting a report of the 150 corruption cases involving, amongst others, top Pakistani politicians, including former President Asif Zardari and incumbent Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, it seems that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) itself has come under fire from the Supreme Court (SC). On Wednesday, a SC bench ordered a report of all corruption cases of NAB and the provincial anti-corruption departments. NAB Director General Operations Syed Khalid Iqbal informed the court that NAB had recovered Rs 265 billion in illegally acquired funds in the past 15 years as “voluntary returns” and “plea bargains”. The SC has now ordered NAB to provide details of the plea bargain deals that the Bureau has struck with the individuals that it has accused of corruption. The bench also noted that NAB only seems to do its job when the apex court gives an order. In fact, the report of the 150 cases was only presented when the SC accused NAB of only looking into minor corruption cases and not looking into the major ones.
The apex court has rightly noted that in its 15 years of operation, NAB has not made a significant difference in the levels of corruption in the country or held corrupt politicians, businessmen and white-collar criminals accountable for their crimes. Justice Jawwad S Khawaja even went as far as to ask what NAB officials had been doing for the past 15 years, besides collecting their salaries. Before NAB submits its report to the apex court, it is not even clear whether these plea bargains were even approved by or even presented in a court of law. If the law is to be upheld in these corruption cases and justice is to be served, the operations of NAB must be transparent and in accordance with the law. Corrupt government officials, entrepreneurs and organised criminals have been allowed to loot the country and have gone unchecked for far too long. Now it seems that the apex court is holding NAB itself accountable for not eradicating corruption in the country, which is the logical first step to making all state dealings clean and transparent. NAB Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry released a statement on Tuesday saying that the Bureau would be looking into the weaknesses of the organisation and introducing a “monitoring and evaluation framework” to maximise results in pursuing corruption cases. To truly crackdown on corruption, NAB must be made more efficient, as the apex court has rightly accused NAB officials of not pursuing cases or presenting proper evidence unless ordered by the court. NAB should also not have the sole authority of judging corruption cases or striking plea bargain deals without the approval of a court because that lies within the jurisdiction of the judiciary. *