ISLAMABAD: Chairman National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Qamar Zaman Chaudhry Thursday said eradication of corruption was top priority of his organization.
While addressing the officers of NAB Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, he urged NAB officers to double their efforts in eradication of corruption with the realization that corruption is root cause of all evils which is major hurdle in the progress and prosperity of the country.
NAB has chalked out a proactive Anti Corruption Strategy which was acknowledged by Transparency International in its Report of 2016. He said that as per the latest report of Transparency International (TI) of 2016, Pakistan’s ranking in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) has improved plus 9 points, adding that Pakistan was considered role model in South Asian countries in its efforts against corruption.
This is a great achievement for Pakistan due to NAB efforts. Besides Transparency International (TI), the independent national and International watch dogs like PILDAT and World Economic Forum have also appreciated Pakistan’s efforts to curb corruption in Pakistan.
Chairman NAB said that NAB’s operational methodology has set three stages for proceeding of cases, complaint verification, inquiry and investigation.
He said, “we have devised Partly Quantified Grading System (PQGS) in 2014 to review and evaluate the performance of all NAB Regional Bureaus about their strengths and weaknesses.” The annual inspection of all regional bureaus is being done which will be completed in the end of Feb 2017.
The initiative of present management of NAB for conduct of annual inspection since 2014 of all the Regional Bureaus and NAB Headquarter has proved very successful in enhancing the performance of NAB’s regional bureaus with the realization that they should overcome their shortfalls pointed out during annual inspection.
Chairman NAB said that NAB has geared up to perform its national duty by adopting Zero Tolerance Policy across the board to eradicate corruption from the country. NAB has emphasized upon its NAB officers to double their efforts to arrest corrupt and recover ill-gotten and looted money of innocent from corrupt and deposit them in the national exchequer.
He said that during the tenure of the present management, NAB has recovered 45 billion rupees in only two and half years and deposited in the national exchequer which is a remarkable achievement of NAB. He said that NAB during the last 16 years, has received about 3,26,694 complaints from individuals and private/public organizations.
During this period, NAB authorized 10992 complaint verification, 7303 inquiries, 3648 investigations, filed 2667 corruption references in respective accountability courts and overall conviction ratio is about 76 percent.
NAB’s prime focus is on cases of cheating public at large by fraudulent financial companies, bank frauds, willful bank loan defaults, misuse of authority and embezzlement of state funds by government servants etc. Since NAB’s inception, NAB has recovered around Rs285 billion, all of which have been deposited in the national exchequer. He said that the figures of complaints, inquiries and investigations are almost double as compared to the same period of 2015 to 2016.
The comparative figures for the latest three years are indicative of the hard work being put in by all ranks of NAB staff in an atmosphere of renewed energy and dynamism, where fight against corruption is being taken as a national duty The Chairman said that NAB has established its first Forensic Science Lab (FSL) in NAB and has rationalized its workload and timelines have been prescribed for efficient, effective and expeditious disposal of cases putting a maximum limit of 10 months which is a challenging target to investigate cases of even white collar crimes.
NAB has also introduced a new System of Combine Investigation Team (CIT) in order to benefit from the experience and collective wisdom of senior supervisory officers, a system of CIT comprising of Director, Additional Director, Investigation Officer and a Senior Legal Counsel has been put in place. This will not only lend quality to the work but also ensure that no single individual can influence the proceedings.
He said that concept of CIT has proved very successful in order to improve quality of inquiry and investigations and benefit from the experience and collective wisdom of senior officers.
He said that in order to identify loopholes, suggest ways and means to plug loopholes and measures for strengthening regulatory mechanism of Federal and Provincial Governments for transparency, meritocracy, fair play and compliance of relevant laws/rules, NAB has constituted prevention committees.
The committees have been constituted on Capital Development Authority (CDA), Ministry of Religious Affairs, Agriculture and National Food security, National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination, FBR, PID besides prevention committees constituted in provinces relating to health, education, revenue and housing cooperatives.
NAB’s Prevention Committee on Ministry of Religious Affairs has forwarded its recommendations to Ministry of Religious Affairs. The ministry considered the recommendations in order to provide better facilities to Hajis and to address their problems.
Due to this reason, arrangements made by Ministry of Religious Affairs during 2016 were appreciated by all Hajis. He emphasized NAB KP to constitute prevention committees in different departments in consultation with concerned departments so that NAB may know and suggest recommendations for further effective working of provincial departments.
