NAB chief says ‘required measures’ needed to ‘crush the begging bowl’

LAHORE: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman, former Justice Javed Iqbal has said that the prime reason behind holding the begging bowl is corruption, and the nation would continue to hold it if “required measures” were not taken.

The anti-graft watchdog chief stated this while distributing cheques worth Rs 1.5 billion among the 1,915 affectees of private housing schemes during a ceremony held at the NAB Lahore headquarter on Thursday.

“We always tried our level best to compensate those affected by bogus private housing schemes”, he said, adding that more than 86 percent of private societies are “fake” and urged the people to avoid investing in such schemes.

He said they always tried not to hurt self-respect of any suspect during the course of investigation. He said the role of Parliament is to formulate laws and it is their responsibility to implement laws whatever Parliament makes. He, however, underscored the need for making a coordinated law through which they can eliminate the menace of corruption.

According to Javed, there is a difference between the government and the state, and all the loyalties of NAB belong to the state. He said the NAB recovered Rs 584 billion during the last four years. He said that someone questioned him about the recovered money and he replied that more than Rs 50 billion had been distributed among the affectees while they have documentary evidence of all the recoveries.

He added that it is “out of question” that NAB played a role in alleged political engineering in the country.

“The only mission of NAB is to hold corrupt elements accountable and recover nation’s looted money from their passions”, he claimed.

Talking about the NAB cases, the chairman said the anti white-collar crime agency ensured convictions of 1,405 persons from courts during the last four years.

Speaking on the occasion, NAB Lahore Director General Shahzad Saleem said they have distributed Rs 15 billion among the affectees during the present regime whereas houses, flats and plots worth over Rs 85 billion were also handed over to actual owners.

He ruled out the impression of one man show in NAB claiming that there is a “proper system” in place for investigations. He further claimed that there is not a single penny misappropriation is NAB’s audit which has been completely carried out recently.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022