Chitral Times Report
PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has prepared initial draft of a new law for the restructuring of Anti-Corruption Establishment to make it a fully independent, autonomous and specialized body with professional expertise. The draft law proposes new nomenclature of “Anti-Corruption Agency” for the body having specialised wings of prosecution, finance and audit, information and data, investigation, internal audit and public complaints.
A meeting to review progress on the new legislation was held here the other day with Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mehmood Khan in the chair. The meeting was given a detailed briefing on various aspects of the new draft law. While agreeing in principle to the draft, the Chief Minister directed the concerned authorities to finalize the draft in consultation with legal experts, former judges, journalists, political leaders and relevant experts by conducting consultative seminars and workshops to make it a comprehensive legal framework in all respects. Underlining the need to make the body fully independent and neutral, he further directed the authorities to ensure that no permanent government employee is part of the body in order to make it free of government interferance. He termed the complete eradication of corruption in all its forms and manifestations in government departments as top priority of his government, the Chief Minister said that the establishment of a completely independent and impartial body free from government influence was essential for the purpose. Besides Provincial Law Minister Sultan Khan, Special Assistant to the Chief Minister on Anti-Corruption Shafiullah Khan, the meeting was attended by Secretary Law, Masood Ahmed, Secretary Establishment Mutahir Zeb, Director Anti-Corruption Establishment Usman Zaman and other concerned officials. The Chief Minister also directed the concerned authorities to go through the relevant laws of other provinces and the federal government as well before finalizing the new draft law and to finalize it in the minimum possible time period so that the same could be tabled in the provincial cabinet and consequently in the provincial assembly for final approval without any delay.
