Anti-corruption strategy proved very successful: Chairman NAB

Justice Javed Iqbal has said that corruption is cancer which is major hurdle in the development of the country. NAB is absolutely committed to eradicate corruption with iron hands across the board. He said that NAB has recovered Rs. 328 billion from corrupt and deposited in national exchequer. Not a single penny has received by any NAB employee as they considered eradication of corruption their national duty. He directed all DGs of NAB to pursue all corruption cases according to merit and transparently as per law. Justice Javed Iqbal said these remarks while chairing fortnightly meeting of NAB to review its performance at NAB headquarters. During the meeting thorough deliberation of the performance of NAB all Regional Bureaus and NAB Headquarter including operation, prosecution and Awareness and Prevention Divisions of the NAB was reviewed and measures taken by the present management of NAB in order to further improve the performance and efficiency of NAB were discussed and directed to be implemented in letter and spirit. Chairman NAB said that NAB has chalked out a very comprehensive Anti Corruption Strategy for eradication of corruption. The operational methodology of NAB for processing of all corruption cases from complaint verification, inquiry and investigation was also reviewed. Chairman NAB directed that NAB’s investigation officers strictly follow Code of Conduct and zero tolerance policy on the basis of evidence as per law. He said that to close the possibility of any single NAB officer influencing the discharge of official inquiry/investigation, the concept of a “Combined Investigation Team” (CIT) has been introduced where two investigation officers and a legal consultant are working as a team for a fair, transparent and unbiased, inquiry/ investigation. He said that Prosecution was also given targets and as a result of endeavors, the accountability court conviction ratio is 70%. He said that NAB besides Enforcement based approach; special focus is being given to Awareness and Prevention activities to educate the people at large about ill effects of corruption. He said that feed back received about NAB’s anti-corruption strategy of Awareness, Prevention and Enforcement is very encouraging. The Anti-corruption strategy of NAB proved very successful. He said that NAB with improved infrastructure and rationalized workload, timelines have been prescribed for efficient, effective and expeditious disposal of case from complaint verification-to-inquiry-to investigation and finally to a reference in Accountability Court. He said that youth is the future of Pakistan; therefore NAB will continue its policy to give special emphases on involving youth in order to aware them about the ill effects of corruption from an early age so that they may hate corruption in all its forms in future, he added. The Chairman further said that NAB in collaboration with HEC has established more than 55 thousands Character Building Societies (CBS) in all the leading Universities/Colleges across the country to build an effective edifice against corruption which will be increased upto 60 thousands Upto Dec 2020. He said that the performance of all Regional Bureau’s of NAB would be conducted on midterm and annual basis at a given criteria under Quantified Grading System in order to review and further improve the performance of officers/officials of NAB as with better quantitative and qualitative improvements in Operational Efficiency Index, rationalized workload, clearly drawn job descriptions and institutional support and supervision. He said that Monitoring and Evaluation System (MES) has been developed for catering the needs of all concerned having salient features of maintenance of data at each stage including complaint entry, complaint verification, inquiry, investigation, prosecution stage and record preservation of Regional Board Meetings and Executive Board Meetings including case brief was discussed and decided that Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) System will be implemented forthwith with the ability to analyze data in qualitative and quantitative form having warnings and alarms system for violators. The Chairman NAB appreciated the devoted efforts of NAB Headquarters and regional bureaus of NAB and directed all officers to double their efforts in eradication of corruption and to recover looted money from corrupt as NAB is determined to make Pakistan corruption free as per law.