NAB committed to root out corruption, recover looted money from corrupt: Chairman

PESHAWAR: Chairman NAB, Qamar Zaman Chaudhry has said that NAB is committed to root out corruption and recover looted money from corrupt with iron hands by using all its resources.

Chairman NAB said these remarks while visiting NAB KP during his farewell visit here on Friday. He said that corruption is mother of all evils and NAB is committed to eradicate the menace by using all its resources.

He said corruption is one of the major factors that creates hurdles in progress and prosperity of a country. It creates injustice, poverty and subside merit, depriving a deserving person of its due right.

He said corruption affects country just like a cancer and delays early completion of development projects causing huge losses to national exchequer. He said that increase in number of complaints also reflects enhanced public trusted in the NAB.

The PILDAT report of last year supports the position stated above as 42pc people trusted NAB against 30pc for police and 29pc for government officials. He said recent report of Transparency International also rated Pakistan in Corruption Perception Index (CPI) from 175 to 116 which is a great achievement resulted due to efforts of NAB.

The World Economic Forum in its report of 2016 said that Pakistan’s corruption Perception Index has decreased from 126 to 122 which is great achievement while the procedure has perfected to make NAB more effective and a proactive Anti-Corruption Strategy has been devised which is considered best due to its efficacy and remarkable results.

He said that NAB has perfected its procedures after taking various new initiatives during tenure of present management of NAB which have started yielding excellent results and we can say that today NAB has rejuvenated to eradicate corruption from the country.

He said that the hard work being put in by NAB officers is commendable.

He said nation is proud of NAB officers/officials who are performing their national duty absolutely professionally, transparently according to law.

He said that NAB during the last three years has recovered Rs. 50 billion from corrupt and deposited it in national exchequer which a record achievement as no other Anti Corruption agency in Pakistan has recovered such a huge amount in short span of three years.

He said that the figures of complaints, inquiries and investigations are almost doubled as compared to the same period of 2014, 2015 to 2017 which are indicative of the hard work, dedication, professionalism and transparency of all ranks of NAB staff in an atmosphere of renewed energy and dynamism, where fight against corruption is being taken as a national duty.

Increase in the number of complaints also reflects enhanced public trusted in the NAB.

Chairman NAB said that main purpose of NAB’s Awareness and Prevention campaign is to create Awareness against the ill effects of corruption among the citizen of Pakistan especially youth of Pakistan.

He said that NAB in collaboration with HEC established 45000 Character Building Societies (CBSs) in universities/colleges as youths are considered a vanguard in this fight. He said NAB has set target for 2017 that the number of Character Building Societies (CBS) should reach at least at 55000 due to its importance and excellent feedback received so far.

He said that Pakistan's Apex Anti Corruption Agency, NAB is the only Organization in world with whom China has signed MoU in order to streamline cooperation in field of anti-corruption and oversee projects to be undertaken under CPEC.

He said that NAB has established its first Forensic Science Lab (FSL) which has facilities of Digital Forensics, Questioned Documents and Fingerprint Analysis. He said NAB has also introduced a new System of Combine Investigation Team (CIT) to benefit from experience and collective wisdom of senior supervisory officers. It will not only ensure quality of work but stop any single individual to influence proceedings.

He said that NAB has devised monitoring and evaluation system to track implementation and outputs systematically, and measure effectiveness of performance to enhance operational, monitoring and evaluation capabilities of NAB.

Chairman NAB said that NAB KP is one of the most important Regional Bureaus of NAB that plays prominent role in contributing overall performance of NAB.

He appreciated the performance of NAB KPK Bureau and directed to arrest all corrupts, proclaimed offenders (POs) and absconders in line with NAB?s enforcement policy.

Appreciating performance of NAB under supervision of Brig (Retd) Farooq Nasar Awan, he said there is always room for improvements.

Speaking on the occasion, Director General NAB KP Farooq Nasar Awan informed that from 2014 to 2017, NAB KP has received 3775 complaints which all were disposed off as per law out of which, 126 inquiries, 51 investigations and 38 corruption references were in the Accountability Courts.

He said that we have recovered Rs.12.4 billion and arrested 102 accused persons.

The overall conviction ratio of NAB KP is 72 percent