The NAB Ordinance has been amended yet again. If in its previous iteration, the anti-corruption watchdog was defanged, it is now toothless. This would, of course, feed into the narrative of the current opposition regarding the intentions with which the current government has come into power. The PTI was already in overdrive in its allegations that all the current dispensation cares about is quashing the corruption cases against it; this would work towards that.
Counterintuitively, the best way to go about this would be to go for the scorched earth policy of former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. Perhaps one of the worst affected by the NAB in what are widely believed to be flimsy charges, the former PM says that NAB should be done away with in its entirety. Let the courts and earlier anti-corruption laws take their course. The Bureau is now a completely toxic entity, with a cadre that is incompetent, vicious, and ironically, corrupt.
By now, it is clear to let sane voice in the country that the Ordinance was the work of a dictator whose only intention was to use it as a political tool to punish opponents and leverage it to get some of them over to the then King’s Party.
Subsequent politicking – and behind the scenes maneuvering by the usual suspects – made it impossible to do away with the Ordinance. Though that isn’t any excuse for the collective failure of the political class.
To make matters worse, the Bureau has ballooned out of proportion. The number of its officers above BPS-17 is now more than those of the entire diplomatic corps of the nation.
This is clearly a monster. The time is right to slay it. Not just for the good of a clean political but also, ironically, for the actual fight against corruption in the country.
