Govt not to accept legislation benefitting individual: Shahzad Akbar

ISLAMABAD: Advisor to the Prime Minister on Accountability and Interior Shahzad Akbar Monday said the government was ready to sit with opposition and accept legislation related to the national interest but it would not entertain legislation for the benefit of a person.

Speaking in the National Assembly on the occasion of passage of a bill on money laundering he said, “We are ready to sit with opposition parties with open heart to discuss legislation related to national interest but would not entertain any person specific legislation."

The advisor said amendments in laws by opposition were not for the national interest but it wanted to introduce amendments for personal gain.

He said amendments had been introduced in the anti-money laundering bill to bring out the country from the grey list of Financial Action Task Force.

He said opposition's amendments introduced to improve the law had been included with open heart by the government after discussion.

Shahzad Akbar said amendments had been made in the FATF related bill to plug loopholes.

However, he said objective of the amendments introduced by the opposition was not to improve the law but to exclude investigation and prosecution from the purview of National Accountability Bureau.

He said this was the reason why the government and opposition had not reached on consensus.

Shahzad Akbar stressed that the opposition did not want to protect the fundamental rights of anyone but its aim was to safeguard their personal benefits.

He said money laundering was being done on fake names.

He claimed that the amendments of the opposition in the money laundering bill would benefit the opposition leader and a person doing money laundering with fake accounts.

He said the state institutions involved in accountability had been destroyed by the previous regime.

It was said NAB did not have the capacity to investigate money laundering but it was not correct, he added.