Islamabad: Former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday questioned the authenticity and transparency of the accountability process in the country, saying “if such activities [of arresting political opponents] are called accountability, then God save this country.”
Nawaz was talking to journalists at the Accountability Court of Islamabad where he had come for hearing in a reference case filed against him by the country’s anti-graft bureau National Accountability Bureau (NAB).
Referring to the arrest on Friday of his younger brother and former chief minister of Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif, Nawaz said the way Shahbaz was summoned in one case and later arrested in another, showed the level of transparency in the entire accountability process.
This was the first time since the death of his wife Kulsoom Nawaz last month on September 11 that Nawaz Sharif ever spoke on some political subject.
Earlier, during the court hearings, he used to come to the Accountability Court and leave the hearing without talking to journalists.
At the last hearing when a journalist persisted and sought his reply to a political question, Nawaz Sharif had only said, “I am in a state of mourning and you are forcing me to speak on politics.”
However on Tuesday he spoke on a couple of issues mostly related to NAB and its “controversial” laws.
Terming NAB laws a legacy of Musharraf era, Nawaz Sharif regretted his government did not do away with them.
“Such black laws which are legacy of a dictator and aim at settling political scores should be immediately annulled,” Sharif said.
“Shahbaz Sharif has worked day and night to uplift the country. His honesty is beyond any doubt and even foreigners could not help admiring his passion and pace of work,” Nawaz said, adding “unfortunately, for his services, the NAB put him in jail.”
Referring to his time in government he said, “Not a single case based on political vendetta was registered against any member of the political parties during the PML-N government.”
Nawaz said the incumbent Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government was not mindful of the economic needs of the country. The currency had plunged to a record low and stock market was also on the verge of crash, he said.
To government, accountability meant accountability of the Sharif family alone, said Nawaz Sharif demanding arrest of the contractor of Peshawar Metro Bus Service.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government’s former chief minister and officials of the project (Peshawar Metro Bus Service) should also come on NAB’s radar. Nawaz Sharif said the former KP government should be asked under which authority it awarded contract of the bus service to a blacklisted company.
