ISLAMABAD - Lashing out at the incumbent government for amending the NAB law, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Monday alleged that the National Accountability (Amendment) Bill 2022 would help the “corrupt rulers” to get another ‘NRO’ (National Reconciliation Ordinance).
Today is the black day when the amended NAB (National Accountability Bureau) law comes into effect that will end the accountability process in the country, he said first in a series of tweets and then in a statement issue by the PTI’s Central Media Department.
With this law, the country is heading towards destruction by excluding white collar criminals from accountability, he also said.
Khan reiterated his stance that economic and political system of Pakistan was derailed through an alleged US-backed regime change conspiracy simply to give this “cabal of crooks” another NRO.
“At a time when our economy had stabilized and was moving towards sustainable growth of 6 percent, the conspirators chose to destabilize Pakistan by sending the economy into a tailspin and dropping a price bomb on our people,” he claimed.
He stressed that the amendments in the NAB law would help the elite dodge accountability.
Former prime minister Khan warned that the latest amendments in the NAB legislation would nip a hefty sum of Rs1,100 billion off the bureau’s jurisdiction.
“Rs1,100 billion of the Rs1,200 billion that was being investigated by NAB will now be out of NAB’s jurisdiction.” History will neither forget nor forgive all those who were part of and enabled this conspiracy against Pakistan to succeed, he added.
Separately, PTI Senior Vice President and former information minister Fawad Chaudhry also endorsed his party leader’s remarks and said that the amended NAB law would prove to be an NRO-II for families of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari.
Speaking at a press conference here, he said that NAB law would benefit Panama cases as well as the coteries of these two families.
He said that under the amendment, assets in the name of wife, children or anyone else would not be investigated.
The PTI leader stated that the agenda of the ruling coalition was not for the betterment of Pakistan but to make necessary constitutional amendments to get their names cleared from corruption cases, which was evident from Federal Minister Khurram Dastgir’s interview.