ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Chairman National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Qamar Zaman Chaudhry on Friday said corruption is root cause of all evils and major hurdle in progress and prosperity of the country.
Bureau’s officers need to double their efforts with realization that eradication of corruption is a national duty, he said this while chairing a meeting here.
He said NAB had chalked out a comprehensive and proactive National Anti-Corruption Strategy of Awareness, Prevention and Enforcement and during two and half years recovered Rs. 45 billion from corrupt and deposited in national exchequer.
The Chairman said NAB’s prime focus was on cases of cheating public at large by fraudulent financial companies, bank frauds, willful bank loan defaults, misuse of authority and embezzlement of state funds by government servants etc.
Since NAB’s inception, one of NAB’s major achievements has been the recovery of around Rs. 285 billion of ill-gotten money.
He said through detailed introspection and analysis of organizational weaknesses, overhaul of procedures and business processes, all pillars of the organization i.e. Operations, Prosecution, Human Resource Development and Awareness and Prevention have been reactivated.
NAB has established its first Forensic Science Lab (FSL) in Rawalpindi which has facilities of Digital Forensics, Questioned Documents and Fingerprint Analysis.
NAB has rationalized its workload and timelines have been prescribed for efficient, effective and expeditious disposal of cases putting a maximum limit of 10 months – from complaint verification-to-inquiry-to-investigation and finally to a reference in the Accountability Court.
He said NAB has also introduced a new System of Combine Investigation Team (CIT) in order to benefit from experience and collective wisdom of senior supervisory officers, a system of CIT comprising Director, Additional Director, Investigation Officer and a Senior Legal Counsel has been put in place.
The Chairman said to create awareness against ill effects of corruption among youth, NAB in collaboration with Higher Education Commission (HEC) had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 2014 and in a very short span of time established over 42,000 Character Building Societies (CBSs) in universities, colleges and schools.
NAB has target that number of CBSs should reach 50,000 in 2017 in order to aware students about ill effects of corruption.
He said in order to identify loopholes, suggest ways and means to plug loopholes and measures for improvement/strengthening regulatory mechanism of Federal and Provincial Governments, NAB has constituted prevention committees.
Prevention Committee on Ministry of Religious Affairs has forwarded its recommendations which were considered to provide better facilities to Hujjaj and to address their problems.
Due to this step, arrangements made by Ministry of Religious Affairs during 2016 were appreciated by all.
