The administration would not confer with the Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, Shahbaz Sharif, on the nomination of the next chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), said Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry on Saturday.

Speaking to the media in Jhelum, the information minister said talking with Shahbaz on the subject is comparable to asking a suspect who their interrogating officer should be.

“The NAB has labelled Shahbaz Sharif a suspect […] and we will not speak with him on the selection of the NAB chairman,” Chaudhry stated.

According to a Dawn article, “currently, Section 6 of the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) stipulates that the president would designate NAB chairman in collaboration with the leader of the house and the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly for a non-extendable period of four years.”

Earlier, in response to media allegations, Federal Law Minister Farogh Naseem stated that his ministry has not written an order to prolong the tenure of Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal as Chairman of the National Accountability Bureau.

According to local media, the law minister told reporters that the topic of the prospective extension of the existing NAB chairman’s mandate had come up in talks with Prime Minister Imran Khan four to five times.

He hoped that the situation would become apparent next week, adding that it was the prime minister’s right to choose the head of the anti-corruption body and that he could only offer advise on the matter.

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