Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah has telephoned Interior Ministr Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khah to lodge protest over raids and alleged harassment by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in Sindh. According to spokesman for the chief minister, Qaim Ali Shah told the federal minister that activities of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the FIA were intervention in the provincial autonomy.What is more its hands have been strengthened by authorisation to keep suspects under custody for ninety days. Qaim Ali Shah has called this an attack on provincial autonomy by the federation. Ch Nisar, on the other hand, maintains the extra powers given to the FIA under the Protection of Pakistan Act (PoPA) were not restricted to Sindh but extended to all parts of Pakistan. CM Sindh claims that Sindh already has departments investigating the crimes that the NAB and FIA are looking into, and that without his permission, these raids by the centre “interfere with provincial autonomy”. One would expect that the words ‘federal’ and ‘national’ should be enough to tell the Chief Minister that these bodies have a national mandate, and are in fact specifically designed to combat trans-provincial crime and irregularities committed by provincial governments. A man of his experience should also know that while convention dictates that the Chief Minister be informed before the centre carries out investigations in the province, but it is merely a formality; not a procedural necessity on which the investigation depends, and certainly not a issue to decry on national television as Qaim Ali Shah has so dramatically done. While the federal government has for the most part tried to suggest that the many facets of the Sindh crackdown are entirely coordinated and led by the PML-N, there are clear and worrying signs that much of what is happening is occurring at the behest of the security establishment behind the scenes. A Sindh government that is at odds with not just the federal government but the military is a dangerous development in an ostensibly democratic framework.These contradictions make one thing clear – Qaim Ali Shah is extremely worried about who is investigating Sindh — which according to him, no one should be doing. The Chief Minister did bring up some pertinent issues – such as the Protection of Pakistan Act, which allows the FIA to detain suspects for up to 90 days – yet, even here his criticism is based on the wrong reasons. Yet, the Sindh government will win little sympathy from any quarter so long as it continues with its hapless ways. That there is epic corruption and mis-governance in the province is no longer questioned by even the most ardent of democrats. That the Sindh government has done nothing to stamp out corruption in its midst is also not seriously questioned by independent observers.Land grabbing is common. Further, the anti-corruption department and CM’s Inspection Committee are part of the problem rather than its solution. Provincial autonomy must not be interpreted to mean unrestricted freedom to indulge in corruption or terrorism.
pk.shafaqna.com
