Faced with a no-trust motion, Prime Minister Imran Khan has taken to addressing public rallies in defence of his record in government. He has claimed among other things that the opposition is hell bent to oust him to thwart him in his commitment to hold all public office holders before him to strict accountability.

This is hardly surprising. In his maiden address to the nation as prime minister, Khan had presented 61 key promises, making accountability and recovery of plundered public funds his top-most priority.

Can such consistency help the government politically? The prime minister apparently believes that. Most independent analysts doubt it. They point out that the government’s preoccupation with accountability and pursuit of ‘looted money’ has failed to deliver both politically significant convictions and recovery of proceeds of corruption. Consider:

The government has spent nearly Rs 3 billion on the investigation and prosecution of 150 high-profile cases since it came to power in August 2018. The National Accountability Bureau has neither made a significant recovery from a political bigwig nor secured a conviction against one. Nearly 80 percent of the accused in high profile cases are currently on bail. Nearly 5 percent have been acquitted by the courts. The Bureau has dropped inquiries against 15 percent.

Official documents show that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) spent nearly Rs 250 million on investigation, operations and proceedings of cases linked to former president Asif Ali Zardari and MNA Faryal Talpur. Similarly, the Bureau’s teams spent Rs 240 million on cases involving Shahbaz Sharif, the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly and his son Hamza Shahbaz.

The federal government had around Rs 18 billion for the NAB for its operations in the past four years. The Ministry of Law and Justice has engaged special judges to hear the cases against these bigwigs in accountability courts. It has released an estimated Rs 320 million for their operations during this period.

Top politicians on the opposition benches have been the main target. They include former premiers Nawaz Sharif, Raja Pervez Ashraf, Yousaf Raza Gilani and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as well as PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto

Cases against PTI members have not made much progress. During the PTI regime, the Bureau started nearly 450 inquiries (88 percent of the total 513) against 210 leaders of the opposition political parties and 48 inquiries against Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf MPs.

Official records show that the anti-corruption watchdog dropped three dozen inquiries out of which 14 were against key leaders of the ruling party. According to official records, the beneficiaries of the NAB decisions include top PTI and PML-Q leaders including Prime Minister Imran Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Mahmood Khan, Defence Minister Pervez Khattak, former cabinet members Zafar Mirza and Aamir Kiani, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Punjab Assembly Speaker Parvez Elahi, Federal Minister Monis Elahi and former minister Zulfi Bukhari.

During the PTI regime, the Bureau started nearly 450 inquiries (88 percent of the total 513) against 210 leaders of the opposition political parties and 48 inquiries against Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s (PTI) MPs.

About 86 leaders of Pakistan Peoples Party currently face inquiries. The NAB has also started inquiries against 62 Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz MPs, eight inquiries each against Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s MPs, Pakistan Muslim League-Q’s MPs and Jammiat Ulema-i-Islam’s MPs.

The Assets Recovery Unit, the flagship institution of the PTI government, has consumed around Rs 111 million for its operations. The federal government has allocated an additional amount of Rs 34 million and other expenditures since 2018. But the ARU has failed to retrieve a single penny a corrupt person during this period.

Shahzad Akbar, the former advisor to the prime minister on accountability, and some of his team members made more than 20 trips to the the UAE, the KSA, the USA, the UK, China and Switzerland, spending millions of rupees but in vain.

Having failed to curb corruption or net the big fish, the government brought a new NAB law described by some of its critics as an “NRO plus.” The new law provided relief to key public servants.

Despite claims by some ministers to recover $200 billion the government was unable to recover a single penny from the key accused and to convict any of the 300 bigwigs allegedly involved in misappropriation causing a loss of Rs 900 billion to the public exchequer.

The credibility of accountability process in the country has thus been undermined. There are 5, 844 corruption cases pending currently. These involving claims worth Rs 12 trillion.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior analyst tells TNS: The problem the PTI faces is not that its accountability narrative did not take off. The PTI faithful are as invested in the narrative as ever. The problem is that the narrative has nowhere to go. Imran Khan assembled a team made up of the people who had earlier worked under Gen Musharraf, the PPP and the PML-N. Once they were in, they did what they always do: rent seeking. Wheat and sugar crises and the real estate boom, not to mention amnesty schemes are run of the mill Pakistani political graft mechanisms. What remains of the narrative is that PTI supporters like Imran Khan better than they like the Sharifs and the Zardaris. There is a place for that. As the PTI is reduced to the size of a party that fits into that mould, it will probably return to being a loud, aggressive and proactive opposition party. It will need to establish a set of alliances other parties. However, its accountability narrative leaves little room to engage with any other party.

PTI MNA Sadaqat Ali Abbasi admitted that accountability promise could not be fulfilled due to multi-pronged issues that the state of Pakistan had been facing. “Delay in court cases, litigation and multiple tactics to block accountability process exist. It is true people’s expectations on accountability could not be fulfilled. Expectations of throwing people into jail and recovery of looted money remained a promise,” he said.

The writer is heading Samaa TV’s Premier   Investigation Unit. He tweets at @ZahidGishkori