The PTI’s protestations at the appointment of a new National Accountability (NAB) Chairman ring hollow on two counts: first, the PTI itself did not make the appointment, preferring to amend the NAB Ordinance to allow the incumbent Chairman to continue. Secondly, even after its ouster, its resignation from the National Assembly meant that it had no voice in the appointment, in which the Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly is a consultee. As the Leader of the Opposition is PTI dissident Raja Riaz, the PML(N) more or less had a free run in making the appointment.
It must be said that the new Chairman has his work cut out for him. Even though headed by a former Supreme Court judge, NAB had been subjected to stictures by the Supreme Court for its violations of human rights. The PTI has complained that the Chairman will close cases against members of the government and open those against its stalwarts, but it might also be remembered that it is a different NAB now, one which the new government has defanged through amendments in the NAB Ordinance. The new Chairman will have to guide NAB to work within the ambit of these amendments.
While Mr Sultan’s service peaked as Intelligence Bureau chief, he is a police officer, and the first to head NAB. It has been headed by serving generals, a retired admiral, a former civil servant and a former judge, and has only now got a policeman as head, even though it is essentially an investigating agency. It is to be hoped that Mr Sultan can bring to the agency the forensic skills needed to investigate the kind of white-collar crime that NAB was set up to detect, and thus convert what so far has merely been a tool of governments to persecute opponents into an institution which actually plays its role in detecting and punishing corruption.
