PESHAWAR: NAB Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry has said that corruption is one of the major factors that creates hurdles in the progress and prosperity of a country. While on an annual inspection visit to NAB Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bureau, he directed all ranks of officers of the bureau to work more vigilantly, diligently and honestly in order to curb corruption and corrupt practices from the country
“Corruption creates injustice and poverty, depriving a deserving person of his/her due right,” he said. He added that corruption was affecting the country just like a cancer. It not only causes delays in the early completion of development projects but also huge losses to the national exchequer.
NAB Chairman’s Inspection & Monitoring Team (CI&MT) which was deputed to conduct annual inspection of NAB KP Bureau for the year 2014. The inspection was carried out for the period February 18, 2014 to February 20, 2015 in order to review and evaluate the performance of the bureau on the basis of a quantified grading system.
The senior member (CI&MT) along with his team conducted annual inspection of NAB KP Bureau for the year of 2014. He gave a briefing to the NAB chairman about the inspection done and highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of the bureau. He said that on the directions of NAB Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry, a quantified grading system has been devised. Under this grading system, performance of the NAB regional bureaus is being evaluated at a given criteria.
The chairman said NAB is Pakistan’s apex anti-corruption organisation which is assigned the responsibility of elimination of corruption through a holistic approach of awareness, prevention and enforcement. He said that NAB KP Bureau is one of the important regional bureaus of NAB. It has played a prominent role in contributing towards the overall performance of NAB.
During the briefing, the chairman was informed that NAB KP Bureau during 2014 filed 35 references. The bureau received 5,261 complaints during the year under inspection and all were disposed of. The bureau authorised 360 Complaints Verifications in 2014 and disposed of 260 of them, completed 65 of the total 249 authorised inquires and completed 40 out of 54 authorised investigations.
The bureau during 2014 recovered Rs159.512 million and arrested 116 accused persons. It has recovered Rs1,615.25 million since its inception. The chairman said that increase in the number of complaints also reflected enhanced public trusted in NAB. The PILDAT report for the last year also supported the position stated above as 42% people trusted NAB against 30% for Police and 29% for government officials. He said the recent report of Transparency International also rated Pakistan in Corruption Perception Index (CPI) from 175 to 126 which is a great achievement for Pakistan due to NAB’s efforts.
The NAB chairman appreciated the performance of the bureau and directed for arresting all corrupted persons and proclaimed offenders (POs). He said that (CI&MT) inspection team has done a good work. He said performance of all wings of NAB KP under the supervision of NAB KP DG is appreciable. He said that the performance of the bureau is appreciable but directed for further hard work as there is always room for improvement. NAB operates under the National Accountability Ordinance-1999 which is extended to all of Pakistan, including FATA and Gilgit-Baltistan. NAB has its headquarters at Islamabad while it has seven regional Bureaus located at Karachi, Lahore, Pehsawar, Quetta, Sukkur, Multan and Rawlapindi.
