NAB law: Accountability to be useless if opposition's amendments accepted: Qureshi

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Wednesday said that accountability would be useless, if the government accepted the opposition's amendments in the NAB law.

Foreign Minister Qureshi, while addressing a press conference along with Advisor on Interior and Accountability Shahzad Akbar, and Parliamentary Secretary for Law and Justice Maleeka Bukhari, said that the opposition cherished its own interests and wanted to cover up 14 years of wrong-doings.

"The opposition should listen and speak with patience and courage." He said the government should not be blackmailed on the FATF laws; however, we are ready to discuss the NAB rules. Pakistan has to make necessary time-barred legislation for its exclusion from the FATF "grey list", and the opposition is required to support the government in this matter. He, however, categorically stated that the government would not be blackmailed by the opposition on the issue, and it would not compromise on its core policy of across-the-board accountability.

Qureshi invited the opposition to support the government on the FATF-related legislation in the national interest, delinking it with their demands for amendments in the NAB laws.

He said that he would not repeat what was said in the parliament. Khawaja Asif blamed me for mockery.

However, Imran Khan said for 22 years that we will clean the country from corruption and this is a firm stand. InshAllah! we will also crack down on corrupt elements, he added. The foreign minister said that our intentions are clear. If the 34 amendments of the opposition are accepted, then the process of accountability will be useless.

"We believe in accountability without discrimination."

Qureshi said that he requested the opposition for cooperation in the FATF laws but their willingness was conditional.

We presented the draft to the opposition but they did not like it. The opposition was demanding 34 amendments to the NAB rules.

The condition of the opposition was that if the government wants to make laws on the FATF, and then accept our amendments on the NAB rules. He said that the meeting was boycotted by the opposition but the doors never close in politics. He feared that India wanted to push Pakistan from the "grey list" to the "black list".

If we get blacklisted, global sanctions could be imposed, which could have dire consequences.

Speaking on the occasion, Special Assistant for Accountability Barrister Shahzad Akbar said that two major champions of corruption have emerged in the past.

Along with the champion family of fake accounts, there is also a "TT" family.

Two grandchildren and a CM kept buying property for their wives on TTs, while a former president said that it has to proven that he went to the bank with an ice cream seller.

"Getting out of the grey list was a challenge, when we came into government," he said. We have to look for the reasons, why Pakistan was put on the grey list.

The previous government did not enact laws against money laundering and facilitation. The two families had a "charter of corruption".

Shahzad Akbar said the government was ready to sit with the opposition on any issue, but it would have to delink its person-specific demands on the FATF-related legislation.

He said it would be difficult for the PTI government and Prime Minister Imran Khan to compromise their core agenda of checking corruption.

The advisor said the opposition had suggested that corruption cases of less than one billion rupees, willful default or writing off loan, and offence of money laundering should stay out of the NAB's purview.

"These (proposed amendments) are not NRO but NRO-Plus," said Adviser to the Prime Minister on Accountability and Interior Mirza Shahzad Akbar.

He said the opposition also wanted that accountability process should be started from 1999, and cases older than five years should not be taken up under the NAB law.

Besides, they want deletion of six offences from the ambit of the NAB.

The advisor said the opposition also desired to make redundant the international mutual legal assistance law, and dealing it under law of evidence of Pakistan.

He said if the government approves these amendments; their main beneficiaries will include former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, his brother Shehbaz Sharif, former president Asif Ali Zardari, Ahsan Iqbal, and Syed Khurshid Ahmed Shah.

On the occasion, Maleeka Bukhari urged the opposition to prefer national interest to their personal benefits.

An amendment also proposed that wife and children should not be fall in the category of benamidars of the accused. "It means that a person can commit corruption in the name of his wife and children," the adviser said.

Akbar said one of the amendments required abolishing of willful default law which meant that anyone could get heavy loans from the banks and nobody will ask about it.

He said under section (9) of NAO-1999 some 12 different crimes were covered and the opposition demanded quashing of six of them.

In one of the proposed amendments the opposition, he said, had demanded that anyone convicted in corruption cases should not be disqualified to hold public or party offices unless the final decision on his cases was decided by the review bench of the Supreme Court.

Similarly, the opposition also demanded abolishing of whistle blowing laws (so that no one can become an approver in any case, indemnity being enjoyed by NAB officials (that no case can be filed against them if they were pursuing corruption cases in good faith) and that any evidence to be received from foreign country could not be presented before the courts in corruption cases.

Responding to a question, Shah Mahmood Qureshi said the government had complied with the ICJ's decision in the case of Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav.

He said the PPP Chairman, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari's reaction to the issue was "naïve".

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020