The government’s accountability mechanism seems to have crumbled as the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) director general (DG) has decided to resign instead of following the Supreme Court (SC)’s decision which ordered him to work as a member of the inquiry team headed by his subordinate. These developments suggest that the country is heading nowhere but to a state of anarchy where every civil servant is free to exercise his options regardless of its impact on governance.
The chronology of recent developments in the backdrop of investigation into the high-profile National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) scam depicts that good governance is still a distant dream. Though it is yet to be established as to who of the two; FIA Assistant Director Khawaja Hammad or FIA Director Waqar Haider used the bomb hoax as a ploy to prevent the FIA Additional Director General (ADG) Zafar Qureshi from entering Lahore, the courage of Hammad should be appreciated as he kept aside his professional obligations.
Hammad told the SC on Wednesday that Haider had been under immense pressure that Qureshi should not be allowed to enter the FIA office on August 13 and August 15, adding that he had been asked to adopt any suitable measure to prevent him from attending office.
FIA Director General (DG) Tahsin Anwar Ali said he and Qureshi belonged to the same group of service but he was the FIA DG and he shouldn’t have been asked to become a member of the investigation team, adding that he had resigned in such a situation. The court told Anwar that he should approach the relevant authorities to present his resignation.
This saga started with the appointment of Tariq Masood Khosa as the FIA DG on January 01, 2009 in place of Tariq Parvez. Later, Zafarullah Khan replaced Khosa on December 7, 2009. Khan was then replaced by Waseem Ahmad as the FIA DG on September 15, 2010. However, Ahmed sent his resignation to the prime minister on April, 6, 2011, stating that he did not want to be a reason of conflict between the judiciary and administration. The SC had ordered the government to remove Ahmad, who was accused of ‘changing the direction’ of high-profile cases including last year’s Haj scam. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani replaced Ahmed with Balochistan Police chief Malik Muhammad Iqbal after accepting the former’s resignation. On June 13, 2011, Iqbal was transferred by the SC, accusing him of contempt of court in the NICL case. His post was given to Tahsin Anwar Ali.
Amid much noise over corruption in the country, the government has not tried to bring new accountability laws in the country and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has been headless for the past many months. Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) parliamentarians are yet to develop consensus on the new law and the draft bill is stuck in the National Assembly Standing Committee on Law and Justice. Both parties are accusing each other for not cooperating due to a lack of political will. The PML-N has disagreed on the proposed legislation as it wants the accountability institution to be headed by a serving judge of the superior court. However, the PPP believes the NJP, envisaged by the chief justice, has no provision to appoint a serving judge as head of the accountability institution because of the executive’s separation from judiciary.
