Fahim welcomes PM’s remarks on accountability

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy Chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim welcomed the remarks of Prime Minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain that accountability must be done by the judiciary and not by anybody else.

While addressing party officials on Saturday the prime minister said the judiciary had the accountability authority to make the process credible. “The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) welcomes the remarks of the prime minister and urges him now to follow up on his observations and restore some semblance of credibility to the process of accountability,” said Mr Fahim in a statement issued on Sunday.

The vice chairman of the PPP said the party understood that in order to be credible, every accountability issue had to pass through the judiciary. Presently, accountability was being conducted through an organ of the executive and the National Accountability Bureau was merely serving as the government’s political weapon to hunt political opponents.

Mr Fahim said everyone knew how President Musharraf used the NAB to break the mainstream political parties, punish political opponents in the name of accountability and reward the corrupt by not pursuing cases against them if they joined the regime.

Last year in January, the NAB admitted in the Senate that three ministers were corrupt but no action was taken against them.

This happened because the chief executive carried out the accountability instead of letting the judiciary take charge, said the PPP leader. Contrary to the promise of ‘across the board, horizontal and vertical accountability’ by General Musharraf, Mr Fahim said, the generals and judges had been excluded from its influence making a farce and mockery of the accountability.

“How can the accountability be called fair and across the board when generals involved in huge kickbacks and commissions in mega-defence purchases are kept out of its ambit,” he said. Mr Fahim said the prime minister would find the PPP-Parliamentarians supporting him if he could bring the accountability process under the preview of the judiciary.

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