ISLAMABAD – The chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Justice (r) Syed Deedar Hussain Shah has quietly directed his staff to close down corruption inquiries against almost 60 leaders of the ruling coalition – mostly from the Pakistan People’s Party.
A source told Pakistan Today on Saturday that the decision was taken at the Executive Board meeting of the NAB on January 29. “During the meeting, the NAB chairman said that since these inquiries were politically motivated and no action was taken over these cases since year 2001-2002, it would be better to close the cases,” the source said, adding that after a brief debate on technicalities involved, it was decided that the NAB would go for a brief review of these cases and following the review, they would be closed once and for all.
The source said of these cases, some were originated by the Nawaz Sharif government’s Ehtesab Bureau in 1998-1999 under the supervision of former senator Saifur Rehman. “There are two very important cases included in the list while the rest of the cases originated against medium and low-profile leaders of the ruling PPP,” the source added. The source said after General Musharraf took over, no progress was made, however, some of the spade work was conducted under General Amjad’s tenure as NAB chairman.
“However, when General Shahid Aziz was made NAB chief, these cases were shelved and there was no progress under Naveed Ahsan’s tenure,” the source said. The source said the meeting also decided that the NAB should be reactivated to full strength and the conduct of inquires, investigations and filing of references would be made on a fast-track basis to make the institution work well independently. “It was decided that the accused in a case be arrested after due verification on merit. It was also decided that an effective strategy would be devised to arrest all proclaimed offenders,” the source added.
He said that the meeting also decided to rename the Oversees Wing the International Cooperation Wing. “During the meeting, the NAB Balochistan director general reported some cases, including the misappropriation in the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) through fake beneficiaries, food department, police, cases of public cheating and development works by using substandard material being handled by the Balochistan bureau. However, the chairman asked him to come up with details in some other meeting,” the source added.
