ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has so far recovered an amount of more than Rs265.12 billion of looted public money.
This was revealed by NAB spokesman Asim Ali Nawazish, while talking to APP on Sunday. He said that received 282,931 complaints, authorized 6250 inquiries, authorized 3142 investigations and filed 2330 references in the Accountability Court.
The figures of complaints, inquiries and investigations are almost double as compared to the same period of 2013 to 2014. The comparative figures for the latest two 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 increase in number of complaints also reflects enhanced public trusted in the NAB, he said.
Nawazish said due to extraordinary performance of NAB complemented with across the board actions, Pakistan’s position has considerably improved from 129 to 126 out of 175 countries worldwide in the latest Transparency International report on Corruption Perception Index (CPI). This reflects that NAB has performed exceedingly well during the year.
In fact, this is the best position attained by Pakistan since Transparency International started this CPI rating system in 1995.
The Bureau has also entered into an MOU with the Higher Education Commission (HEC) to carry out joint awareness efforts against elimination of corruption. He said support from all segments of society, particularly the educational institutions is imperative to make it effective at mass-scale. The role of students and academicians are highly important in preparing the people not to indulge themselves in corruption in any manner. He said NAB had also initiated the programme to form character building societies to eliminate the corruption at grassroots level, therefore about 10,000 CBS societies were established in which 150,000 members have been registered.
Nawazish also mentioned World Anti Corruption Day on December 9 and on this day UN’s member states make resolve to put in place comprehensive measures in order to eradicate corruption and create awareness to prevent the menace.
NAB has also devised a comprehensive Quantified Grading System in NAB to review and further improve the performance of Officers/Officials of NAB. Under this grading system, NAB Regional Bureaus are being evaluated at a given criteria of percentage.
The Bureau with improved infrastructure and rationalized workload has prescribed timelines for efficient, effective and expeditious disposal of case putting a maximum limit of 10 months – from complaint verification-to-inquiry-to investigation and finally to a reference in Accountability Court.
NAB has decided to give priority to corruption cases i.e.; normal cases from Rs100-200 million, Complex Cases from Rs500-1000 million and Mega Cases Rs1000 million and above for mega cases.
NAB under the leadership of Qamar Zaman Chaudhry has initiated an internal accountability drive and the inefficient, unscrupulous and delinquent officers are being weeded out and proceeded against under relevant provisions of law.
A Special Integrity Management Cell has been set up in NAB Headquarters. Furthermore, NAB has designed an Automated Monitoring and Evaluation System for effective monitoring of the performance of individual officers, prosecutors and the field formation.
NAB has established its first Forensic Science LAB (FSL) which has facilities of Digital Forensics, Questioned Documents and Fingerprint Analysis.
