Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader and former Prime Minister (PM) Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has demanded the abolishment of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), blaming the watchdog institution for the ongoing crisis in the country.
While speaking outside an accountability court in Islamabad after attending a hearing in the LNG case, he said, “Agar mulk chalana hai toh is idaray [NAB] ko khatam karain (If you want the country to progress, this institution [NAB] should be abolished).
He said the “so-called” accountability was aimed at defaming only politicians. “The so-called process of accountability operates just to ridicule politicians,” he added.
Lambasting ex-chairman of NAB, Javed Iqbal, the former premier said that he should confess who told him to register false cases.
It is pertinent to mention that PML-N has repeatedly criticised NAB and said that false cases were made against party leaders.
In August, the National Assembly passed the National Accountability (Second Amendment) Bill, 2022, which sought to exclude private transactions from the scope of NAB.
Under the amended bill, the pecuniary jurisdiction of NAB had been fixed to only take action against mega scandals. Furthermore, it had been proposed that supplementary references can only be filed with the permission of the court to expedite the proceedings of the court within one year.
