President Arif Alvi on Monday rejected the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Ordinance Amendment bill, saying that there existed flaws in its implementation.
An official statement by the president of Pakistan on Twitter said that originally, the bill was inspired from “Hazrat Umar’s incident” wherein he had questioned about the source of extra cloth in his cloak.
The statement said that the responsibility to provide a money trail was on the accused in financial crimes.
The president stated that there were flaws in NAB’s implementation, and it was misused for political purposes by vested interests.
President Alvi stated that the nation had desired the return of the looted wealth, but long judicial processes and poor prosecution hindered that.
The president stated that the proposed changes would ‘destroy the accountability process’ by creating a façade of justice that hid corrupt elite capture and ensured the exploitation of the common man.
President Alvi said that the poor would continue to suffer while the corrupt rich would loot and plunder.
He said that his conscience would not allow him to sign the bill.
On Sunday, President Dr. Arif Alvi had once again sent back the election amendment bill believing it to be “regressive” in nature and had urged parliament that use of technology be allowed in the elections.
In an official statement through the president’s secretariat, it was revealed that Dr. Alvi had not signed the bill even though the constitution would make it into law.
The president, while invoking Article 75(2) of the constitution, said that it was “very painful” for him as the head of state to not sign a bill passed by the parliament.
