ISLAMABAD: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has completed 6,300 inquiries out of the 309,000 complaints received from individuals in the last 16 years. Of the total inquiries, 56 per cent matured into formal investigation and more than 80 per cent investigations were taken into courts of law.
Presiding over a meeting to review the performance of ‘Awareness and Prevention Division’ of bureau, NAB Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry on Thursday said that out of the 1,762 decided cases, the bureau has achieved conviction in 889 cases with the rate of 51 per cent.
He said that the increase in number of complaints reflects enhanced public trusted in the NAB, which focuses primarily on cases of cheating by fraudulent financial companies, bank frauds, misusing authority and embezzlement of state funds by government servants.
One of the major achievements of the NAB was the recovery of around Rs 276 billion of ill-gotten money – since its inception – which was deposited in the national exchequer. He said it is encouraging that for the first time ‘Anti-Corruption’ has been made part of the Pakistani development agenda so the fight is taken to the corrupt as a national duty.
The chairman said that the figures of complaints, inquiries and investigations are almost double as compared to same period of 2014 to 2015. The comparative figures for the latest two years are indicative of hard work being put in by all ranks of the NAB staff in an atmosphere of renewed energy and dynamism.
The NAB chairman believes corruption as the mother of all evils that undermines development and also deprives the general public from their due rights. He said that the bureau had chalked out a comprehensive ‘National Anti-Corruption Strategy’ and adopted a ‘Zero Tolerance Policy’ to curb corruption and corrupt practices.
The chairman said that the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) in its report stated that over 42 per cent people trusted in the bureau against 30 per cent for police and 29 per cent for government officials. The recent report of Transparency International (TI) also rated Pakistan in Corruption Perception Index (CPI) from 126 to 117, which is also a great achievement.
He said to create awareness against the ill effects of corruption among the youth the bureau collaborated with Higher Education Commission (HEC) and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), while over 22, 000 Character Building Societies (CBSs) have been established in universities, colleges and schools during past one year.
Qamar Zaman, the bureau’s chairman, has also devised a comprehensive quantified grading system to review and further improve performance of its officers and regional bureaus are also being evaluated under the grading system on annual basis.
