Despite protests and a walkout by the opposition, the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Law and Justice adopted two controversial bills aiming to change the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) of 1999 with a majority vote on Thursday.
After the committee’s chairman, Riaz Fatyana, of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), announced that the bills had been passed with a nine-seven vote, opposition members staged a walkout.
The opposition members accused the committee’s chairman of putting the measures up for vote before they had been fully discussed and after realising that the Treasury members outnumbered the opposition.
At the time of voting, two opposition members, Khawaja Saad Rafique and Rana Sanaullah of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), were absent.
After the chairman of the committee announces the legislation’ passage, opposition members conduct a walkout.
Mr Rafique, on the other hand, entered the committee room shortly after the voting and criticised the chairman’s decision to put the legislation to a vote despite the fact that he was on his way from Lahore to attend.
Syed Naveed Qamar of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), speaking to Dawn after the committee meeting, claimed that the chairman of the committee “scuttled” the ongoing discussion as soon as he saw the two treasury members join the meeting, bringing the government members into a majority and putting the two bills up for voting.
On the two bills, the National Accountability (Second Amendment) Bill, 2021, and the National Accountability (Third Amendment) Bill, 2021, the opposition members had already submitted their dissenting notes.
Mr Qamar also opposed to National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser’s decision to replace Agha Hassan Baloch of the Balochistan National Party (BNP-M) in the committee with Mehboob Shah of the PTI.
On Wednesday, Mr Shah attended the committee meeting for the first time, and treasury members greeted him warmly.
The government had not only granted an extension to incumbent chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), retired Justice Javed Iqbal, through the bills, which had already been promulgated through ordinances last year, but he had also been allowed to continue in office until the appointment of his successor in the event of no consultation between the prime minister and the opposition leader.
The bills have drastically restricted NAB’s jurisdiction and given the president the power to re-appoint or extend the current chairman’s term.
The ordinances also exempted federal and provincial cabinets, the business community, and collective decisions made by committees or subcommittees, the Council of Common Interests, the National Economic Council, the National Finance Commission, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council, the Central Development Working Party, the Provincial Development Working Party, the Departmental Development Working Party, and the State Bank of Pakistan from NAB’s jurisdiction.
The treasury and opposition members had a violent verbal exchange at the committee’s meeting when PPP’s Abdul Qadir Mandokhel delivered an aggressive speech and several treasury members objected to his tone and language.
Mr Mandokhel and Ataullah of the PTI also fought back with some nasty words.
