AJK legislative assembly approves amendments to accountability law.

Byline: Tariq Naqash

MUZAFFARABAD -- The Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Legislative Assembly approved amendments to the region's accountability law with majority vote on Friday.

Deputy Speaker Assembly Sardar Amer Altaf presided over the session.

Expressing his views on the AJK Ehtesab Bureau (6thAmendment) Act, 2020, Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider maintained that the amendments had been effected to make it a balanced piece of law, restricting everyone to bounds of the stipulated jurisdiction.

Prior to this legislation, the accountability bureau officials would seize irrelevant records during raid(s) at offices but now such confiscation will have to be processed through the secretary of the department concerned, he said, adding that action would be taken against the secretary for failure to provide or handover records to the bureau within the stipulated time.

Mr Haider noted that an impression had been created that both the politicians and bureaucrats were pilferers and said: 'If everyone in the country is a thief then who will come from abroad to make investments here?'

These amendments were under consideration since 2018 and had been finalised keeping in view alleged flaws in the accountability law of Pakistan, he said.

Appreciating the democratic approach of the opposition lawmakers, he said they were at liberty to bring any amendments to the law that they deemed were inevitable for its further improvement.

'I assure you that wherever you will suggest refinement, we will jointly go for it. I wish to have such a transparent system of accountability that no...