Islamabad: While chairing a meeting to review overall performance of NAB at its headquarters here on Friday the Chairman NAB Justice (r) Javed Iqbal has said that the anti-graft organization was committed to root out corruption in all its forms and manifestations across the board with iron hands.
He said that NAB has established state of the art Forensic Science LAB in Islamabad which has facilities of Digital Forensics, Questioned Documents and Fingerprint analysis which will be utilized for further improvements in the quality of inquiries and investigations in all respect. Chairman NAB said that due to prescribed timeframe for efficient, effective and expeditious disposal of cases from complaint verification-to-inquiry-to-investigation and finally to a reference in the Accountability Court, NAB has filed 590 corruption references in respected Accountability Courts across the country during the last one year which is a record achievement. He said that NAB has introduced a new concept of Combine Investigation Team (CIT) in order to benefit from the experience and collective wisdom of senior supervisory officers, a system of CIT comprising of Director, Additional Director, Investigation Officer and a Senior Legal Counsel has been put in place which is lending quality to the work.
The Chairman NAB said that national and international reputed organizations have appreciated NAB’s efforts in eradication of corruption. On the basis of across the board accountability under its Enforcement policy, NAB has not only arrested 569 accused persons during last one year but also recovered Rs. 3900 million from corrupt elements and deposited all amount in national exchequer and not a single rupee has been taken by any NAB employee as NAB officers/officials considered it their national duty. He said that the present management of NAB has devised a comprehensive Quantified Grading System in order to further improve the performance of NAB. NAB has devised a state of the art Monitoring and Evaluation System (MES) in order to measure the effectiveness of performance which help in enhancing the operational, monitoring and evaluation capabilities of NAB.
Today, more than 1210 corruption references of NAB are under trial in various respected Accountability Courts of the country and approximately total amount is Rs. 900 billion. He said that NAB on bilateral cooperation, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with China to streamline and structure and cooperation in the fields of anti-corruption. In the context of CPEC this cooperation will further boost confidence in projects undertaken in Pakistan. NAB is the only organization in Pakistan which has approximately 70 percent conviction ratio. This is just because of the proactive Anti-Corruption Strategy which is being implemented across the board during the present management of NAB with iron hands.
“Considering corruption as cancer, NAB has adopted “Accountability for All” Policy to eradicate corruption and corrupt practices with iron hands. Due to this reason, figures of complaints from people against corruption have almost been doubled as compared to the figures of same period of 2018 to 2019. The comparative figures of last one year are indicative of hard work, commitment and excellent performance of NAB officers who are working in an atmosphere of renewed energy and dynamism, where fight against corruption is being taken as a national duty”, the NAB chairman said.