This material belongs to: The Express Tribune.
Eradication of corruption is the top priority of National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the bureau’s chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry said in a statement issued on Sunday.
“NAB is committed to eradicating corruption by adopting Zero Tolerance Policy,” NAB Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry said.
He said that considering corruption as the biggest hurdle in the way of prosperous Pakistan, NAB was established as an apex anti-corruption organisation with a mandate to eradicate corruption and to recover hard earned looted money of innocent people from the corrupt. He said that due to NAB’s proactive National Anti-Corruption Strategy to eradicate corruption, NAB has received about 3,43,356 complaints from individuals and private and public organisations. During this period NAB authorised 11, 581 complaint verification, 7587 inquiries, 3846 investigations, filed 2808 corruption references in respective accountability courts and overall conviction ratio is about 76% of NAB.
He said that the figures of complaints, inquiries and investigations are almost double as compared to the same period of 2014 to 2017. The comparative figures for the last three years are indicative of the hard work being put in by 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 trust in the NAB.
The PILDAT (Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency) in its report supports the position stated above as 42% people trusted NAB against 30% for police and 29% for government officials.
The recent report of Transparency International also rated Pakistan in Corruption Perception Index (CPI) from 126 to 116 which is a great achievement for Pakistan due to Chairman NAB’s efforts. The World Economic Forum and Mishal Pakistan according to Global Competitiveness Index of the World Economic Forum rated Pakistan from 126 to 122 this year which is great achievement of Pakistan due to NAB efforts.
He said that NAB has devised Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to rationalise the 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 that NAB is committed to eradicating corruption from the country by adopting Zero Tolerance Policy for corruption free Pakistan.
He said that NAB’s Anti-corruption strategy proved very successful which is continuing in 2017 due to its effectiveness.
