ISLAMABAD: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman Justice (R) Javed Iqbal made some changes in the bureau’s hierarchy, by transferring/posting three director generals. According to a notification issued by the anti-graft watchdog, DG Brig (r) Farooq Naser Awan (Grade-21) has been transferred from Karachi to Peshawar. DG Najaf Quli Mirza (Grad-21), who was serving at the NAB headquarters, has been transferred to the NAB regional office at Karachi. DG Fayyaz Ahmed Qureshi has been transferred from Peshawar to the NAB headquarters Islamabad as director general (awareness and prevention wing) in own pay and scale. Sources said DG Mr Najaf Quli Mirza has good reputation to work on mega cases with complete impartiality. He does not take any pressure and take the corruption cases to the logical end. He joined the top anti-corruption watchdog to quickly probe the multi-billion corruption scams by assisting the Combined Investigation Teams (CITs) engaged to file all 16 references by Jan 2020. He has taken up a number of big cases against top politicians and organizations of the country. He also headed the JIT for investigating Rs 35 billion money laundering case involving top Sindh politicians. Mirza was the first officer who started the probe into the fake accounts case soon after the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) took up the case in November 2015 on the request of Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU). However, he was removed from investigation after Pakistan People’s Party’s objection last year. With this interesting development, the NAB team summoned Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah in Islamabad on September 24, 2019 and told him that the NAB top administration has engaged Najaf Mirza in ongoing [fake accounts] investigation. The NAB’s ongoing investigation suggested that some other key leaders of PPP namely ex-CM Sindh Qaim Ali Shah, sitting CM Murad Ali Shah and PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari could face serious investigation in the coming months. Sources said, in May 1999, Mirza was serving as the superintendent of the jail where Zardari was incarcerated. Later, in 2013, he was appointed the director of FIA Sindh. Najaf also worked at Port Qasim for three years. He also served as the Additional DG FIA and now he is performing his duties in NAB as Director General. Meanwhile, Brig (r) Farooq Naser Awan recorded exceptional performance during his tenure at NAB Karachi. Now he is being posted at NAB KPK Peshawar to take up mega corruption cases like Malam Jabba land case and Rs200 million Warsak Canal bridges case, as he has past experience of working in the mega city of Peshawar. At NAB Karachi, he made record recoveries of Rs 57 billion during a short span. During Oct 2018 – Dec 2019, NAB Karachi received over 11000 complaints, which were subsequently resulted into 198 inquiries, 77 investigations, 179 arrests and 50 references as filed in Hon’able Accountability Courts during 2019. It is worth mentioning that NAB Karachi recovered Rs 7 billion through Plea Bargain during last 18 years, whereas during Oct 2018 – Dec 2019 NAB Karachi has recovered Rs 5 billion through Plea Bargain in one year under DG Farooq Naser Awan’s supervision. During Oct 2018 – Dec 2019, such recoveries come to Rs 50 billion, which is 1.5 times higher in comparison, with previous 18 years and if Bahria Town recovery is included in the same, this recovery goes up to Rs 700 billion plus, which is remarkable performance as compared to pervious 18 years.
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