NAB recovers Rs 25 billion misappropriated in corruption: Bokhari

Chairman National Accountability Bureau Chairman Admiral Fasih Bokhari (Retd) on Saturday said that the Bureau has recovered Rs 25 billion of the public money misappropriated in corruption during the execution of various projects. "Since its inception, this is the biggest recovery by the NAB team, except the one backed by military in year 1999" during the Musharraf regime, the NAB chief told media persons here on Saturday.
He said that the pace of the recovery was swifter this year against that of the previous year and hoped that the Bureau would recover the embezzled amount in a bigger volume. Bokhari said since its establishment, the NAB recovered Rs 236 billion out of which Rs 180 billion were recovered during one week of the campaign launched against bank loan and tax defaulters during the tenure of General (Retd) Amjad with the backing of armed forces. However, recoveries during preceding years remained negligible and gained momentum during the incumbent government.
The NAB chief said the authority had now adopted international methods of preventing corruption under which the Bureau intervened into the projects and procurements worth Rs 1.5 trillion and saved Rs 200 billion of public money from corruption during 2012. He said NAB has taken the responsibility of revoking the corruption before its happening that had been manifested by Bureau's intervention in high-profile cases, involving huge money.
The NAB chief was of the view that small-scale cases should be handled by FIA and Anti-corruption Establishment, police and departments having their own courts such as Customs and Taxation. Moreover, the NAB was making concerted efforts to improve structural inadequacies to prevent corruption in all government departments.
"Regular briefings and discussion with the regulators have resulted in proactive actions and activities to help improve their efficiencies and minimise the chances of corruption and corrupt practices. He said the NAB would empower the regulators to promote meritocracy, fair-play, transparency, awareness, and combat the corruption that eat up at the very core of the Pakistani structure.
Fasih Bokhari has also been focusing on character building of the future generation involving different educational institutions for raising awareness against corruption in the society. "A number of universities have undertaken to include the eradication of corruption and character building against corrupt practices in their curriculum," he said.
He said despite facing severe manpower deficit, the NAB revitalised its functioning when it was on the verge of collapse. "Currently, we are running our affairs with 28 percent strength of manpower. Though we have recruited 260 new investigators, deficit yet exists," the chairman NAB said.
He said training of new officers will take another six months and would further strengthen the enforcement. 40 among these investigators will be sent for further training abroad on the basis of their performance as NAB has sought co-operation of FBI and the investigation and anti-corruption agencies of the European Union.
When asked why NAB investigations were slow, the chairman said that investigating financial crimes was a highly complex business. "White-collar criminals are highly intelligent and savvy in financial dealings and regulations. Finding prosecutable evidence to secure conviction under our current outdated Evidence Act is time consuming. Current investigators also need modern training."
"To deal with white-collar crime is not as easy as it seems to be. Unfortunately we are not having innovative and advance expertise to prove and investigate the forensic evidences," he said. Although the investigation was a time consuming process, "we are striving hard to complete the probe of different cases as early as possible". "I have already directed NAB Operations and Prosecution Wings to actively pursue all high-profile cases, including RPPs and Ogra cases so the references could be filed if court-worthy evidence is available," Fasih Bohari said.