Nepra joins anti-NAB chorus

The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) has now joined the growing chorus of critics of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). In its State of the Industry Report 2018, Nepra has challenged the intrusion into its affairs by NAB. The Report says almost all of the projects on which Nepra had made power tariff determinations have been questioned by NAB, and the way the investigations are being conducted has completely stifled the morale of Nepra's professionals. Nepra laments that the boundaries of its regulatory jurisdiction have been breached by NAB, boundaries beyond which NAB cannot intervene. The Report emphasised that a holistic approach was urgently required so that the confidence of the power sector in general and that of its regulator; Nepra in particular, are not unduly undone. It is significant to note that one of the Director Generals Nepra, Insaf Ahmad, has been detained by NAB and is under trial. This issue has apparently been raised at the level of Prime Minister Imran Khan. Former senior officials of Nepra are also facing investigations, which has sent a negative message to incumbent officials. The thrust of Nepra's report points in the same direction as the effect of NAB's activities vis-à-vis the bureaucracy, businessmen, and opposition politicians. The bureaucracy, it is being reported since even before the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government came to power in 2018, has been paralysed in its decision-making because of the fear of being 'nabbed' by NAB. Business confidence has plummeted to an all-time low because NAB has not spared those entrepreneurs accused of corruption, whether for themselves or allegedly as front men for opposition political leaders. Parliament and democracy stand emasculated because top opposition leaders are almost all behind bars, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) leader and former leader of the opposition in the last parliament, Syed Khursheed Shah, being the latest elevated to this 'rogue's gallery'.
The problem with NAB's 'standard operating procedure' is that persons suspected of wrongdoing are arrested even before a charge or reference has been filed against them. NAB's excruciatingly slow investigation process follows, which often leaves detainees languishing behind bars for months or even years. This track record points towards the incapacity of NAB to conduct investigations speedily and efficiently. There is also concern about the level of expertise available in NAB to tackle complex technical issues as demonstrated by former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi's arrest and interrogation in the LNG case. All this underlines the need for building capacity and expertise in NAB to prevent those charged, either before or after references have been formally filed against them, being unnecessarily incarcerated for long periods while NAB's snail-paced investigations merrily meander their way without reaching any conclusive outcome. The political opposition has suggested that the NAB chairman's powers of arrest should be done away with and arrests only made after references are filed and the courts adjudicate the need or otherwise to detain the accused. After all, the jurisprudential principle that the accused should only be detained if there is a danger of them slipping away or escaping abroad needs to be adhered to. And speaking of jurisprudential principles, the NAB process because of the way its law has been crafted, assumes the guilt of the accused ab initio, justifies its arrests on that basis, and leaves the onus of proof of innocence on the accused, thereby turning on its head the long established principle of law and due process that the accused must be considered innocent until and unless proved guilty of the offence. So much so, that even Chief Justice of Pakistan Asif Saeed Khan Khosa has weighed in with the expression of concern that the NAB process appears more and more to be partisan political engineering that is rapidly losing its credibility. Of course, the very opposition leaders being targeted by NAB must by now be ruing their neglect of the repeal of Pervez Musharraf's National Accountability Ordinance 1999 and the consequences that have flown from it. To add to the tangled web, the NAB chairman himself has of late been embroiled in controversies about character and uprightness. This whole NAB mess has brought life and work in the country to an undesirable pass. Saner voices and heads need to come together to overcome the negative and malign effects of NAB's peculiar modus operandi and perceived partisanship.