ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Chairman National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Qamar Zaman Chaudhry Monday said the bureau needed to maximise its efforts to eradicate corruption by adopting ‘Zero Tolerance Policy’.
While addressing officers after two days annual inspection of NAB’s office in Rawalpindi, he said it was encouraging to make anti-corruption part of development agenda in context of governance and Planning Commission included a chapter devoted to issues of corruption in 11th five-year plan.
He said NAB was essentially a complaint driven organization and during last 16 years received about 326,694 complaints from individuals and private/public organizations.
During this period, NAB authorized 10,992 complaint verifications, 7,303 inquiries, 3,648 investigations, filed 2,667 corruption references in respective accountability courts and overall conviction ratio was about 76 percent.
Since NAB’s inception, one of NAB’s major achievements was recovery of around Rs 285 billion of ill-gotten money which had been deposited in national exchequer, he added.
He said the 2014, basically a year of reinvigoration, NAB had moved with new zeal and zest.
The chairman said through detailed introspection and analysis of organizational weaknesses, overhaul of procedures and business processes, all pillars of the organization such as operations, prosecution, human resource development and awareness and prevention had been re-activated.
He said NAB had established its first Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in NAB’s Rawalpindi office which had facilitated of digital forensics, questioned documents and fingerprint analysis.
NAB had also introduced a new System of Combine Investigation Team (CIT) to benefit from experience and collective wisdom of senior supervisory officers, he added.
He said NAB had emphasized on character building of youth which was not only our asset but future of Pakistan.
He said more than 42,000 Character Building Societies (CBS) had been set up in universities and colleges.
“We have set target for 2017 that number of the CBS should reach at least at 50,000. The students of various universities and colleges regularly organize meeting of the CBS in their respective institutions,” he said.
He said NAB Rawalpindi was flagship regional bureau and had played prominent role in contributing towards the overall performance of NAB.