Appointing the NAB chairman

Collapse of the spirit of consensus must be prevented

The delay in the appointment of the new National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chief is becoming more and more an issue. The head of the Pakistan’s key accountability bureau is a post that requires the understanding of both the government and the opposition – and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government is not looking all that keen to resolve the issue any time soon. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has come out to claim that the government has not yet invited the leader of the opposition for parleys on the matter. The rules state that the NAB chief must be appointed in consultation with the opposition and the fact that the opposition is raising such fears should be something the government addresses immediately. The Supreme Court has already asked the two parties to hold meaningful consultation on the issue.

For now, after the last NAB chairman Admiral (Retd) Fasih Bokhari was removed by the SC on May 28, NAB remains in paralysis. The PML-N government claimed to the SC on June 26 that it had kicked off the consultation on the issue but it has now emerged that the government was not telling the truth. This is a continuation of the bad precedent set in the last PPP government when both retired Justice Syed Deedar Hussain Shah and retired Admiral Fasih Bokhari were sent home by the SC on petitions by the last opposition leader Ch Nisar Ali Khan. Nisar had made a claim similar to the one being made by Khurshid Shah today that “no meaningful consultation” had taken place between him and the government. The PPP is now set to continue the tradition and reject any options put forward by the PML-N and could turn to the SC to get any PML-N appointee disqualified. The difference over names already exists with the government proposing either retired Justice Rehmat Hussain Jaffery or former federal secretary Khawaja Zaheer Ahmed while the opposition has suggested the names of retired justices Bhagwandas and Sardar Raza.

The process is a blow to the politics of consensus that broke after the PML-N managed to force the holding the presidential polls earlier. This means that the PML-N will make it more difficult for itself to rule. Many an observer would think that the purposeful appointment of successive NAB chairman’s without the approval of the opposition leader is a deliberate attempt to keep the accountability agency dysfunctional and under political influence. With NAB already holding many investigations against former PPP functionaries from the last government, it cannot be seen to be biased towards the party. If the PML-N does not pay heed, a return to the politics of the 1990s could be in order. Hopefully no one in either the government or the opposition wants that.