NAB recovers Rs 466 billion from corrupt elements: Chairman

ISLAMABAD, AUG 31 (DNA) – Corruption is a curse and is the only solution to eradicate menace of corruption is surgery as the corrupt elements inflicted multiple losses to the country. Corruption is inflicting irreparable losses to country.

National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was established in 1999. The main aim of establishing NAB was to recover the looted money from the corrupt and put them to justice as per law.

NAB has fulfilled its duties perfectly and deposited a sum of Rs 466 billion in the national exchequer after recovering from the corrupt elements since its inception which is record achievement.

Honorable Justice Javed Iqbal, Chairman NAB had devised an effective anti corruption strategy immediately after taking over the responsibilities of Chairman in 2017. Chairman NAB’s strategy has been acknowledged by various reputed organizations.

The visionary Chairman NAB has also introduced various reforms in the bureau for taking action against the corrupt without any discrimination.  NAB’s Headquarter is Islamabad and it has eight regional offices located at Karachi, Lahore, Quetta, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Sukkur, Multan and Gilgit-Baltistan are working hard with best of their abilities to eradicate corruption and recover looted money from corrupt elements in order to deposit in the national exchequer. NAB during the tenure of Honorable Justice Javed Iqbal, Chairman NAB has recovered Rs. 363 billion during last two years which is ample evidence of NAB’s commitment to the cause of eradication of corruption and to make corruption free Pakistan.

Chairman NAB firmly believes in taking action across the board by adopting “Accountability for All” policy without considering their status or position in government or opposition. Some 59 percent people of the country have expressed their satisfaction over the performance of NAB as manifested in surveys conducted by Transparency International, World Economic Forum, PILDAT and Mashal Pakistan. This has indeed rejuvenated NAB. NAB is the Chairman of SAARC anti corruption forum and is focal institution of the country as per anti corruption convention of United Nations (UNCAC), which is honor for the country due to NAB’s efforts. NAB has distinction of inking MoU with China for combating corruption and sharing each other’s experiences regarding elimination of corruption.

NAB has registered a total of 53,643 complaints during the year 2019. Of which 42,760 were addressed as per law. NAB had authorized 2,166 complaint verifications and concluded 1,308 complaint verifications. NAB okayed 1,686 inquiries in the year 2019 and forwarded 747 inquiries for further action. NAB had approved 609 investigations and processed 269 investigations. Out of 179 mega corruption cases, 11 inquiries and 14 investigations are near completion. Under the leadership of Justice Javed, the bureau has recovered record Rs 363
billion directly or indirectly from the corrupt elements and deposited  in the national exchequer. NAB has revisited the workings of its investigation officers and set up the mechanism of Combined Investigation Team (CIT) aimed at benefitting from the experiences of two investigation officers and senior supervisory officers as Case officer/Additional Director, Legal Consultant, Forensic Expert, Financial Expert and Director under the supervision of concerned DG NAB. This has increased the quality of workings, besides eliminating the chances of influence on the cases. NAB has also fixed 10 months period for completing the various stages of registering complaints to filing reference, which is proof of NAB’s sincere efforts of taking the cases to logical conclusion.

NAB’s Regional offices are playing vital role in overall performance of NAB. NAB have established Complaint Cells in all its respective Regional offices excluding Complaint Cell in NAB Headquarters, Islamabad in order to address complaints of people related to corruption and corrupt practices on the directions of Justice Javed Iqbal. Chairman himself listen the complaints of the citizen on every last Thursday of every months by holding ‘Khuli Ketchery’ at his office. Chairman NAB has also set up a special cell to register grievance of the business community at NAB Headquarters. Same Cells have also been established at regional offices of NAB to facilitate business community. A consultative committee has also been constituted to resolve the issues of business community. The business community has lauded the efforts of chairman in resolving their issues.

Chairman has directed all DGs to honor the self esteem of all visiting accused persons as NAB is a human friendly organization which strongly believe in self respect of every person come in NAB. A grading system has also been initiated to assess the performance of NAB officers as well as offices. An effective monitoring and evaluation system was also in place to help assessing the standard of investigation of cases. It is producing positive results.  NAB is committed for logical conclusion of mega corruption investigations, housing societies/cooperative housing societies and modarba scandals and recovered billions of hard earned money from illegal housing /cooperative housing societies which were looted through cheated people at large. All affectees thanked Chairman NAB for recovery of their life earned money. NAB has asked the people to only invest in legal housing societies in order to avoid complications. NAB has also asked LDA, QDA, KDA, MDA, CDA, SBC, PDA and ICT, etc to play their role in checking the illegal housing societies and saving peoples hard earned money. NAB has also established a forensic laboratory in Islamabad for detecting criminal elements and eliminating corruption with the help of modern facilities. The lab has also helped in enhancing standard of investigations. The elimination of corruption is collective responsibility of the society and all and sundry such as media, civil society and others could play important role in this regard. Chairman NAB is committed in teamwork and strongly believe that all investigation officers and prosecutors should pursue NAB cases in accordance with law on the basis of solid evidence on merit. NAB officers consider elimination of corruption as their national responsibility. NAB under the dynamic leadership of Honorable Justice Javed Iqbal, Chairman NAB is strictly adhering to its goal of corruption free Pakistan.