UNODC team meets NAB chairman

Islamabad

A delegation of United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) led by Aldo Lale Demoz, deputy executive director of UNODC called on Qamar Zaman Chaudhry, chairman NAB at NAB Headquarter, says a press release.

The NAB chairman said that NAB during the last 16 years has received about 3, 26,694 complaints from individuals and private / public organizations. During this period, NAB authorized 10,992 complaint verification, 7,303 inquiries, 3,648 investigations, filed 2,667 corruption references in respective accountability courts and overall conviction ratio is about 76 percent. The figures of complaints, inquiries and investigations are almost double as compared to the same period of 2015 to 2016.

He said that NAB's prime focus is on cases of cheating public at large by fraudulent financial companies, bank frauds, wilful 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 Rs285 billion of ill-gotten money which was deposited in the national exchequer which is a remarkable achievement of NAB.

He said that NAB has established its first Forensic Science Lab (FSL) in NAB 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. NAB has also introduced a new System 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.

He pointed out that as per the latest report of Transparency International (TI) of 2016, Pakistan's ranking in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) has improved plus 9 points, adding that Pakistan was considering role model in South Asian countries in its efforts against corruption. This is a great achievement for Pakistan due to NAB efforts. The Corruption Perception Index (CPI) in the Pakistan as per Transparency International (TI), report was declining after 2013 due to steps taken by the present management of NAB against the corrupt. Besides TI, the independent national and International watch dogs like PLIDAT and World Economic Forum had also appreciated Pakistan's efforts to curb corruption in Pakistan.

At the end, Aldo Lale Demoz, Deputy Executive Director UNODC appreciated the efforts of NAB under the leadership of Qamar Zaman Chaudhry, Chairman NAB in eradication of corruption and assured all possible assistance and in capacity building of NAB officers as well as establishment of Pakistan Anti-Corruption Academy in line with the vision of Chairman NAB to establish NAB training Academy at Islamabad equipped with state of the art/modern technology catering the capacity building needs of NAB investigation officers/prosecutors in order to investigate while collar crimes etc.