Islamabad: Honorable Justice Mr. Javed Iqbal has said that corruption is the mother of all evils. NAB has devised a comprehensive National Anti-Corruption Strategy to eradicate corruption and recover looted money from corrupt elements across the board which has started yielding excellent results. He said that all ranks of NAB officers are absolutely committed to root out corruption in an atmosphere of renewed energy and dynamism, where fight against corruption is being taken as a national duty.
He said that NAB’s major focus is on corruption and corrupt practices i.e.; money laundering, cases of cheating the public at large, willful bank loan defaults, misuse of authority and embezzlement of state funds. Since NAB’s inception, one of NAB’s major achievements has been the recovery of around Rs.466.069 billion which is a great achievement as per the annual report of 2019 of NAB. Starting from the year 2017 which can be called basically a year of reinvigoration of NAB, we have moved with new zeal and effort after through detailed introspection and overhaul of procedures and all pillars of the organization i.e. Operations, Prosecution, Human Resource Management, Training and Research and Awareness and Prevention have been reactivated.
He said that NAB has devised a new concept of Combine Investigation Team (CIT) for efficient, effective and expeditious disposal of cases from complaint verification-to-inquiry-to-investigation and finally to a reference in the Accountability Court within prescribed time frame of 10 months which is benefiting from the experience and collective wisdom of senior supervisory officers and is also lending quality to the inquiries/investigations as per law.
The Chairman NAB said that NAB is a role model for SAARC Countries. Pakistan is first Chairman of SAARC Anti-Corruption forum in order to have collaborative efforts for eradication of corruption on the basis of best practices. NAB has signed MOU with China in order to eradicate corruption. He said that NAB for the last three years has established over 55 five thousands Character Building Societies in universities/colleges to create awareness against corruption among students/youth which has proved very successful. NAB has also established Prevention Committees throughout the country in order to identify loopholes and suggest ways and means in consultation with concerned departments to ease out their service delivery systems in order to address the problems of people at large. He said that requests for early hearing of 1230 corruption references would be filed in respective Accountability Courts so that people’s Rs 947 billion could be recovered from corrupt elements and deposited into national exchequer. He said that elimination of corruption is top most priority of NAB. NAB is using his best abilities and resources for elimination of corruption. He said that Transparency International (TI), Pakistan, World Economic Forum, PILDAT and Mishal Pakistan have appreciated NAB’s efforts in eradication of corruption.
