- Will the investigation be a whitewash?
The Cabinet has decided to make public the enquiry commission report on Independent Power Projects (IPPs) and ordered their forensic audits. The absence of two ministers for the agenda item concerned, because they wanted to keep themselves away from the process indicates that they were involved with the IPPs. The two are unelected, PM’s Adviser Razak Dawood and SAPM Nadeem Babar, and it is now to be seen how they are dealt with. The Cabinet overrode objections by the Energy Ministry that publication of the report would affect relations with such foreign countries as China, whose companies might be shown in a bad light. If the wheat and sugar shortage investigation is anything to go by, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is very likely to involve itself by opening an investigation into the affair under its domain.
It remains to be seen how vigorously NAB involves itself in this affair, and how it deals with the persons involved. NAB has the power of obtaining a 90-day remand against a suspect, and then using this period to try and work up the evidence. How good it is at doing this can be seen from the way in which leading oppositions party figures, particularly from the PML-N, have been arrested, kept in prison, only to be released after NAB failed to produce any evidence. All the while, the PTI government has claimed it had not influenced NAB. It has not commented on how NAB has proved a revolving door through which PTI leading lights have obtained clean chits. One of the many PM’s advisors, Dr Babar Awan, was under investigation for his role as Law Minister in a PPP government in the grant of contracts to IPPs, and resigned. However, he made a comeback in the course of the Cabinet reshuffle over the wheat and sugar shortages, as did another PPP stalwart, Abdul Aleem Khan who returned as Punjab Senior Minister after having been jailed by NAB over a housing scheme of his.
It is all very well to dismiss the IPP charges as just charges, as the Prime Minister has done. Those against whom an accusation is made should be treated the same, no matter what party they belong to. The precedent has already been set for those who belong to the opposition. If PTI men get any less harsh treatment, another bad precedent will have been set.
