Govt rows back on move to curb NAB powers.

Byline: Amir Wasim

ISLAMABAD -- In view of growing criticism against the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government for providing what many critics descriAbed as a 'mother of all NROs' to businessmen, bureAaucrats and politicians by curtailing powers of the National Accountability BurAeau, an ordinance promulgated by President Arif Alvi on Saturday took back majority of the amendments circulated to the cabinet by the law ministry a day before.

Two major opposition parties - the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan Peoples Party - have rejected the ordinance, alleging that the government is making efforts to protect a few of its cronies and 'dry-clean' the PTI.

The law ministry on Saturday officially released the text of the controversial ordinance - The National Accountability (Second Amendment) Ordinance, 2019 - that is still in favour of the country's businessmen who will no longer bear the brunt of NAB as cases pertaining to 'federal or provincial taxation, levies or imposts' have been excluded from the purview of the accountability law and the existing 'trials shall stand transferred from the relevant Accountability Courts to the criminal courts' dealing with such offences.

President promulgates National Accountability (Second Amendment) Ordinance

The first amendment in the NAB Ordinance 1999 was made by the present government on Nov 1 which deprived the people involved 'in any offence involving any amount above Rs50m' from availing better classes in the prison.

The ordinance has not only taken care of the business community, but, to some extent, of politicians and bureaucrats as well, as it redefined the terms 'misuse of authority' and 'acts done in good faith'.

Surprisingly, the text does not contain a number of clauses which were widely reported by the media on Friday, quoting from the text that had unofficially been provided to reporters by the official quarters, including NAB.

Interestingly, the law ministry has released the text with the subject 'Revised Updated NAB Ordinance', thus causing further confusion.

The text messages sent to the media persons by the official spokesperson for the law ministry said: 'This is the one approved by the president. It will be notified later.

'The moment, (the) PresiAdent signed the Ordinance it was promulgated. Now it is being published in the Gazette. The printing is going to be the official notification. Ordinance will most probably be notified on Monday or Tuesday in the official...

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