ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training Shafqat Mehmood has said the law of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had the blessing of leading opposition parties, – Pakistan People’s Party and Pakistan Muslim League(N) – as they did not modify the law in their tenures.
Speaking on the floor of the National Assembly, he said PPP and PML-N brought major changes in one third of the Constitution through the 18th Amendment but did not change a comma or full stop of the 2001 NAB law of Pervez Musharraf.
He was responding to PPP leader Khursheed Shah who in a long-drawn speech expressed anger over the way Speaker Sindh Assembly Agha Siraj Durrani was arrested by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Tuesday from Islamabad.
He stressed that no member of the Parliament had objection about the accountability process.
Every country and institution had the process of accountability, however, now the opposition objected to an institution about which it did nothing while remaining in power for ten years, he said.
If the opposition thought that NAB had powers which should not have been given to them, then the previous governments should have done something about it, he added.
He recalled that Leader of House and Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly in the past appointed chairman of NAB with consensus on their own.
He clarified that NAB neither took instructions from the Prime Minister nor it was working under the government.
The minister said NAB was taking action on its own and it was not his mandate to defend NAB or do otherwise, adding senior minister of PTI government in Punjab was also arrested which was hurtful to them.
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