ISLAMABAD: Pakistani politicians are only a small minority among hundreds figuring in the 150 corruption cases, submitted to the Supreme Court by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), although they have raised a lot of public hue and cry over their targeting by the anti-graft agency.
Politicians’ main attack on the NAB is that while it has maligned them through a systematic effort that smacks of a design and a well-calculated strategy, it has spared the wrongs committed during Pervez Musharraf’s nine-year rule.
A perusal of hundreds of names mentioned in the summary of 150 cases prepared by the NAB shows around 20 political leaders, who have been identified in the list. All these cases pertain to financial and land scams and abuse of power.
The politicians facing NAB inquiries or investigations include Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, former premiers Yusuf Raza Gilani, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Asif Ali Zardari, Pervaiz Elahi, Ghazi Akhtar, Haroon Akhtar, Aslam Raeesani, Abdul Ghafoor Lehri, Asfandyar Kakar, Masoom Shah, Murid Kazim, Aftab Sherpao, Mehmoodzeb, Nasimur Rehman, Arbab Saadullah, Shah Nawaz Marri, Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan, Senator Sehar Kamran and Ishaq Dar.
Some of these investigations and inquiries especially those against Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif, Chaudhry Shujaat and Ishaq Dar are more than 15 years old. It is because of the laxity and incompetence of the NAB that these cases are still pending disposal.
All these cases were initiated at the behest of the then martial law authorities as part of the political vendetta.
Civil servants, businessmen, bankers, owners of the private housing schemes, textile mills owners, loan defaulters, federal and provincial ministries and departments, private builders etc, dominate those facing inquiries and investigations, according to the NAB summary.
The politicians are irked over mention of their names in the NAB list and conveniently ignoring the illegalities committed during Musharraf’s era. Hardly any of the major financial scandals and corruption cases, involving hundreds of billions of rupees, of his rule has been reflected in the NAB report.
Almost every key political leader has been presented as accused in these cases. But, there is no reference to Musharraf, who had illegally doled out over 10,000 kanals of military land, meant for martyred families, as political bribe to his blue-eyed despite the fact that the Dera Ismail Khan military land allotment case is very much with the NAB.
While the political leaders and the civilian governments have been slurred in cases of alleged corruption pending for years but were neither decided nor disposed of, Musharraf has been lucky as the NAB overlooked almost everything connected with him.
From the 2005 stock exchange swindle to the Pakistan Steels Mills privatisation, 2006 sugar scam to the financial bungling in multi-billion rupee clean drinking water project, alleged kickbacks in defence procurement including PAF surveillance aircraft deal, to the doling out of military land to political leaders and his (Musharraf’s) personal staff, corruption in the 2005 earthquake funds to ghost pension scandal, controversial sale of Pakistan’s property in Jakarta to changes in the Islamabad’s master plan for financial benefits of Musharraf’s chief of staff to the innumerable cases of illegal and unconstitutional appointments made by the dictator, almost everything has been missed by the NAB.
Musharraf, who during his rule became a billionaire with his assets both within and outside of Pakistan, has never been questioned while the NAB has been quick to make references about the key political leaders’ assets.
Internews
