ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has recovered over Rs 289 billion from the corrupt and deposited in the national exchequer in just three months.
Moreover, NAB’s conviction ratio is 76 percent and NAB is the only organization which is role model organization in SAARC Countries as Pakistan’s corruption Perception Index (CPI) is decreasing for the last three years due to NAB efforts from 175 to 116. This is just because of the proactive Anti-Corruption Strategy of Awareness, Prevention and Enforcement adopted by NAB and involving youth of Universities, Colleges and Schools to aware them about the ill effects of corruption at an early age.
Today, NAB is the only organization who has established 55 thousands Character Building Societies of students throughout the country. Due to this reason, today eradication of corruption is the voice of the whole nation and NAB under the dynamic leadership of Justice (r) Javed Iqbal, NAB Chairman is working hard to come up to the expectations of the nation.
Both opposition and ruling party had appointed Justice (r) Javed Iqbal NAB Chairman with consensus. The reason was his integrity, honesty and excellent past record of Javed Iqbal. After assuming charge, Justice (r) Justice Iqbal said on very first day (October 11, 2017), that his new responsibilities were challenging and working honestly would contribute in enhancing goodwill of the institution and winning respect from the people. The NAB chairman said as a judge of Supreme Court that his policy was “justice for all” and now as NAB chairman his slogan would be “accountability for all’.
Javed Iqbal said his priority was elimination of corruption. He vowed strictly pursuing zero tolerance and self accountability policy. He also told NAB officers that he has no affiliation with any political party. NAB would not be used to take revenge from anyone. He urged NAB officials to complete investigations on merit that too without caring about any duress or favor. He said investigations should be completed as per law and inquiries must not remain pended for long. Non completion of inquiries defames the accused besides affecting their reputation as an accused is considered innocent until proven guilty. NAB has been turned into an active and effective institution; he said adding that the whole nation pinned hopes on NAB for elimination of corruption from society.
From very first day the NAB Chairman had got briefing from every department. He directed the officials to complete inquiries, investigations within the stipulated time period of ten months. NAB Chairman also warned the concerned about serious consequences of failure in completing the complaint verification, inquiries and investigations within ten months period. Concerned DGs would also be questioned about their failure in completing the investigations. On October 25, the Chairman had also sought mega corruption reports within three months which is set to complete on Jan 25. The meeting to review performance of all NAB’s Regional Bureaus is set to fix during this week in order to seek ongoing progress on mega corruption cases.
In last three months, NAB Chairman had taken notice of various complaints and ordered inquiries on issues including corruption reports in Multan Metro Project, corruption reports in 56 public limited companies, Existence of 435 offshore companies of Pakistanis in Panama and British Virgin Islands, Corruption in construction, expansion of Kachhi Kanal, return of housing societies’ plundered money reports, arrest of 15 absconders. RDA, ICT and CDA have started placing details of illegal housing societies on website and also inform the people through advertisements. Furthermore, the Chairman has started listening public complaints on every last Thursday of the month and directed DGs of Regional Bureaus to listen public complaints related to corruption in their respective Regional Bureaus.
The same order was conveyed to all DGs and they have listened to the complaints of citizen at their respective bureaus. The response from citizen was very encouraging and they appreciated the initiative of NAB Chairman for opening the doors of NAB for general public. NAB Chairman had also summoned three Executive Board meetings and authorised filing of references in various accountability courts. Country owed $84 billion while mobile companies were not paying approximately taxes amounting to Rs 400 billion to FBR. NAB has pointed out to FBR to take up the issue.
