ISLAMABAD: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Javed Iqbal on Friday said that the Bureau is carrying out across the board accountability.
The NAB chairman said this while chairing a high-level meeting at the Bureau’s headquarters to review overall progress of all the bureaus. He said that today all officers/officials of NAB are absolutely committed to root out corruption with iron hands in an atmosphere of renewed energy and dynamism, where fight against corruption is being taken as a national duty.
He said NAB is the only organization in the world which has prescribed time frame for disposal of cases in 10 months for investigation of white collar crimes. He said that the quality of inquiry and investigation of NAB has been further improved due to establishment of NAB’s first Forensic Science Lab in Islamabad.
The NAB had chairman directed all the bureaus to bring mega corruption cases to their logical end on emergency bases and asked to refer other routine cases to the concerned anti-corruption agencies.
The NAB chairman told the meeting that during the span of last one year, 44315 complaints had been registered, 227 inquiries launched, 440 references filed and Rs2580 million recovered from the plunderers.
The NAB chairman said the officers are doubling their efforts in nabbing corrupt elements and recovering hard earned money of the innocent citizens from them. He said the NAB has moved with new zeal and efforts and through detailed analysis and review of organisational, operational and prosecution strengths and weaknesses, overhaul of procedures and all pillars of the organisation ie operations, prosecution, human resource development, awareness and prevention have been reactivated.
He said the NAB has rationalised its workload and timelines have been prescribed for efficient, effective and expeditious disposal of cases putting a maximum limit of 10 months – from complaint verification-to-inquiry-to-investigation and finally to a reference in the accountability court. He said the NAB is the only organisation in the world which has prescribed time-frame for disposal of cases within 10 months for investigation of white collar crimes.
He said the NAB has devised Monitoring & Evaluation System (MES) to monitor the performance of the NAB and all regional bureaus in qualitative and quantitative term which has proved very successful. He said the NAB has engaged youth to make it aware of the ill-effects of corruption at an early stage and establishment over 55,000 character-building societies in universities and colleges about the ill-effects of corruption which is a major hurdle in country’s progress.
He said the NAB is heading Saarc Anti-Corruption Forum and this was recognition of its excellent work. “The NAB is the only organisation with whom China has signed a MoU to oversee projects being undertaken under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. He said the NAB hopes that joint efforts of all stakeholders can help in checking corruption.