PPP, PML-N reject new amendment in NAB ordinance

• PPP senior leader Mian Raza Rabbani Tuesday rejects the promulgation of the NAB’s third amendment ordinance.
• He says the government has ensured that non-transparent accountability of the opposition continues.
• Shehbaz Sharif terms the new amendment in the NAB ordinance as “sheer political vendetta”.

ISLAMABAD: Casting serious doubts on the intentions of the PTI-led government, the country's two major opposition parties — PML-N and PPP — have rejected the third amendment in the NAB Ordinance.

Opposing the move, PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif said that Prime Minister Imran Khan has given himself and his government an NRO through the new amendment in NAB Ordinance.

Talking to Twitter, the PML-N leader said, “If there was any doubt about how NAB-Niazi nexus has operated to victimize Opposition parties, this amendment is a clear manifestation of wicked mindset.”

He termed the new amendment in the NAB ordinance as “sheer political vendetta”.

PPP senior leader and former chairman Senate Mian Raza Rabbani also rejected the promulgation of the NAB’s third amendment ordinance.

The PPP leader Tuesday said that the new ordinance will pave the way for ‘selective' accountability, adding that the NAB has now become an attached department of the executive as its head can be removed by the executive.

Through this Ordinance, he said the government has ensured that non-transparent accountability of the opposition continues.

“Are these sinister moves to revive the pre 18th Amendment position when the president shared powers and if so then what is the game plan,” asked the PPP senator.

Rabbani said the government through successive legislation is giving a role to the president which is not envisaged under the 1973 Constitution. “The independence of the NAB chairman has been seriously compromised by the third amendment ordinance, issued by the government, the president can now remove him,” he said.

Rabbani said the office of the NAB chairman even otherwise, without any legal means, has been misused for political engineering. He said replacing the Supreme Judicial Council for the removal of the NAB chairman shows the lack of respect for institutional procedures, transparency and defanging the judicial organ of the state.

The former Senate chairman said there is no security of tenure, the NAB chairman will now serve as long as he lets the puppeteer manipulate him against the opposition.