KARACHI: Sindh Assembly passed a bill on Monday to repeal the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Ordinance 1999 under which the bureau loses its right to take action against the provincial government’s institutions and officers.
Amid a rowdy protest from the opposition benches in a session of Sindh Assembly, the bill to repeal NAB’s powers was presented by Provincial Law Minister Ziaul Hassan.
The passing of the bill means that NAB has lost its right to take actions against any institution which comes under the Sindh government or any of its officers. Sindh NAB will only be allowed to take action against any federal government employee.
The entire session was marred by a noisy protest from the opposition benches who chanted slogans of ‘No Corruption No’ as the bill was being passed. Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani said that he would grant everyone an equal opportunity to speak.
Ziaul Hassan said that NAB Ordinance was a means of intervention from the federal government in provincial matters. He said that it was disappointing that NAB court does not have bail power.
He said that the NAB chairman himself was involved in corruption and now he was in-charge of an accountability body.
“We are bringing a new anti-corruption bill in 30 days,” he said.
He said that the government was trying to create a provincial accountability authority which would eliminate corruption from the province.
MPA Khawaja Izhar Hassan said that he was curious as to the intentions of presenting such a bill.
“We also have lawmakers and senior politicians,” he said.
Earlier, the Sindh cabinet gave their approval to repeal the NAB ordinance in the province. The approval was given in a high-level meeting chaired by Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah at the CM House after a briefing on the subject by Advocate General for Sindh Zamir Ghumro.
The NAB will now only have the mandate to probe and hear cases related to federal institutions.
Corruption cases related to provincial institutions will now be probed by the Provincial Ehtesab Bureau, said the advocate general earlier.
