NAB's Anti-corruption Strategy Starts Yielding Dividends: Chairman

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 17th Feb, 2017 ) : Chairman, National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Qamar Zaman Chaudhry on Friday said proactive anti- corruption strategy of Bureau has proved very successful and started yielding dividends.

Addressing officers of NAB Multan during his visit to Multan Bureau, he said eradication of corruption was our top priority. The Chairman said NAB had devised Partly Quantified Grading System (PQGS) to review and evaluate performance of all Regional Bureaus to know about their strengths and weaknesses.

The annual inspection of all regional bureaus was being done which would be completed during this month. The initiative of present management of NAB for annual inspection of all Regional Bureaus had resulted in enhancing their performance, he said, adding that NAB had geared up to perform its national duty by adopting Zero Tolerance Policy to eradicate corruption.

He emphasized upon NAB officers to double their efforts to arrest corrupt and recover ill-gotten and looted money of innocent people and deposit them in the national exchequer. He said during tenure of the present management, NAB had recovered Rs.

45 billion in only two and half years which is a remarkable achievement. The Chairman said NAB during last 16 years received about 3,26,694 complaints from individuals and private/public organizations.

During this period, NAB had authorized 10,992 complaint verifications, 7303 inquiries, 3648 investigations, filed 2667 corruption references in respective accountability courts with overall conviction ratio of about 76 percent.

Qamar Zaman Ch. said NAB's prime focus was 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.

He said figures of complaints, inquiries and investigations were almost doubled as compared to same period of 2015 to 2016. The comparative figures for the latest three years were indicative of hard work being put in by all ranks of NAB staff in an atmosphere of renewed energy and dynamism, where fight against corruption was being taken as a national duty.

The Chairman said NAB had established its Forensic Science Lab (FSL) and has introduced a new System of Combine Investigation Team (CIT) to benefit from experience and collective wisdom of senior supervisory officers.

This system would not only lend quality to the work but also ensure that no single individual can influence proceedings. The Chairman said Pakistan had become first Chairman of SAARC Anti-Corruption Forum for collaborative efforts to eradicate corruption on basis of best practices.

"NAB is a role model for South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries", he remarked. NAB had signed MoU with China to eradicate corruption, he said and added Pakistan and China would oversee and ensure transparency in Pakistan China Economic Corridor Projects.