It seems that the government is making attempts to sweep the Broadsheet scandal under the carpet by first referring it to an “investigation panel” tasked with ascertaining all the facts related to the complex case, and then by appointing former Supreme Court Judge Mr Justice Azmat Saeed to head it. The opposition is crying foul and rightly so; Mr Justice Saeed having been one of the judges on the bench that gave the Panama Papers Case verdict that resulted in former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s disqualification. Furthermore, because the Broadsheet case has at its centre the many indiscretions od NAB (National Accountability Bureau) and Mr Justice Saeed was part of the accountability watchdog in the Musharraf regime, which is when the firm was hired, his appointment has raised some eyebrows. Such moves are bad for optics and further validate preconceived notions in the minds of skeptics, especially the opposition in this case, that the government is biding its time, is seen to be doing something by going through the necessary motions, until this latest controversy blows over and the next one arrives. The government has conveniently chosen to ignore a cold hard fact that responsibility for the Broadsheet debacle lies primarily and to quite an extent solely, on military dictator Musharraf and the NAB of the time which he established. But unfortunately, due to extenuating circumstances, the real perpetrators of the highway robbery committed by Broadsheet with the Pakistani taxpayer will never be brought to book, let alone properly accused of the same by the PTI government. Apart from the controls on free thought and expression, there is also the PTI’s extreme dependence on NAB to keep the opposition in check, which is why its hands are tied when it comes to reprimanding an already out-of-control institution for past mistakes.
It would have been better if the opposition had been consulted over the formulation of the team probing the entire episode and the person heading it, rather than deliberately choosing a figure that would understandably irk them. Considering such decision-making on part of the government, it is no wonder why its relationship with the opposition is the way it is, and has been for a while.
