Disband NAB, head must resign: Bilawal

Ag INP

LAHORE/PESHAWAR: Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Wednesday said that after the verdict of the Supreme Court, there is no justification for the NAB to continue working.

Addressing a press conference, he said the NAB would have to arrest all cronies of the prime minister and conduct arrests in foreign funding cases, BRT project, Malam Jabba and other cases if it follows SC orders. After reading some parts of the Supreme Court verdict, he said Benazir Bhutto’s and his own stance about the NAB have been proved correct. The Supreme Court has verified what we had been saying for years. Now, the parliament should legislate for across-the-board accountability.

He said the Transparency International declared the PTI government the most corrupt government in history. The PTI admits there is corruption then who is doing this corruption. He said Ali Zaidi makes money in the BRT project for Imran Khan. There is corruption in billion trees project, Malam Jabba and the auditor general has declared Rs 270 billion irregularities in government departments. The Transparency International has said there is a corruption of 118 billion rupees in postal services. The government cronies made billions in flour, sugar and petrol corruption. This money was taken out of the pockets of people.

The PPP chairman said he had always said that the NAB is being used for political engineering and now the Supreme Court has also said this. He read out from the Supreme Court verdict and said that after this verdict, there is no justification for the existence of the NAB. If the NAB chairman has any shame, he should resign and go home, he demanded.

He said all people who are under the NAB arrest should be released including Khursheed Shah. The PPP condemns the NAB for calling Shahbaz Sharif to appear before it. No one should play politics on anybody’s health, said Bilawal, adding that Shahbaz Sharif is a cancer patient. He said the working relation between the PPP and the PML-N is cordial.

To a question, he said the PPP never talked about any minus-one formula. He said he with a delegation of the PML-N discussed different options and formed committees for calling an All Parties Conference of the opposition parties. A detailed agenda is being prepared for the APC, keeping in mind the needs of the people of Pakistan. The APC will be held after Shahbaz Sharif recovers from illness. Punjab, which is the largest province with most resources, has been handed over to a team that is under training. Punjab could not fight COVID-19 effectively despite having maximum resources at its disposal. The Punjab government did not support doctors and medical workers. The government in Punjab is unable to run the affairs of the province. Punjab is a bread basket and if the agriculture in Punjab suffers due to inefficient government, the entire Pakistan will suffer. The PPP government brought an agriculture boom in the country but now the food security of the country is threatened due to Punjab’s incapable and under-training government.

He said the federal and Punjab government pushed every Pakistani towards danger. “The results of the selected governments are before us. The economy, democracy, and society suffer the most due to the selected government. Everybody is in loss when an engineered government is imposed upon people.” He said the country is about to enter its worst economic crisis. We are going through a pandemic and attacks on crops by locusts. Now, the political engineering should end. The government is trying to bring legislation in the name of the FATF which will usurp all basic human rights. The PPP has always been ready to support legislation against terrorism but if the government does not fight terrorism, the PPP cannot support it.

Bilawal said he is still waiting for the government’s response about the terrorist Ehsanullah Ehsan. “The prime minister called Osama bin Laden a Shaheed and we are still waiting for his clarification. Whenever I criticize the PTI government, Ehsanullah Ehsan threatens me personally and the party.” He asked how Ehsanullah Ehsan escaped from detention. Who was responsible for his escape? In whose custody was Ehsanullah Ehsan when he successfully escaped? Why were cases not initiated against him? “He was involved in killing innocent children of the APS, our military men, and our citizens.”

Meanwhile, Awami National Party (ANP) Chief Asfandyar Wali Khan on Wednesday asked the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman to quit after the Supreme Court’s detailed judgement.

Through a statement issued here, the ANP chief said that after the SC remarks in the Khwaja Saad Rafique and his brother Salman Rafique case, the NAB had become a meaningless institution. He said his party had a very clear stance about the so-called accountability from the very first day, adding that the ANP had been claiming that the NAB was engaged in political victimisation instead of accountability. “The SC has confirmed the ANP’s stance about the bureau,” the ANP chief said, and demanded the NAB chairman to resign.

Asfandyar Wali said that the NAB had been formed by a dictator, which had been used against political opponents. He added that the NAB had never taken any action against the corruption by the incumbent rulers. “Several scandals had come to fore in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but it did not take action,” he said, adding that on the other hand, the opposition members were jailed on mere allegations of corruption.

On Wednesday, Punjab Information Minister Fayyazul Hassan Chohan said Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) President Shahbaz Sharif and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari are reluctant to trust each other.

Reacting to Bilawal Bhutto’s press conference, the provincial minister said the PPP chairman visited Punjab to seek Shahbaz Sharif’s help to save his father Asif Ali Zardari and himself but the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly ignored his request.

I had told this beforehand that the opposition can only become fake not united and honest. The opposition should consider me a political saint after my prediction concerning divided opposition came true, the minister said.

There is a massive difference between carrying out a protest campaign against the incumbent government and building castles in the air. The federal government will complete its constitutional term under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan. The Punjab government has become stronger after the cabinet’s complete trust in Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar, he said.