‘NAB committed for logical conclusion of mega corruption white collar crime cases’

Islamabad : National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Justice (r) Javed Iqbal has said that NAB is absolutely committed for logical conclusion of mega corruption white collar crime cases. He said that NAB has filed 101 corruption references in different accountability courts from out of a total of 179 mega corruption references. Out of which 46 corruption references had already been disposed off. Out of a total of 179 mega corruption references, 13 inquiries and 19 investigations are under process, says a press release.

NAB has recovered record Rs178 billion from the corrupt elements during the last two years directly and indirectly from corrupt elements and deposited in the national exchequer. Besides, NAB has recovered Rs328 billion from corrupt and deposited in national exchequer. He directed all DGs of NAB to pursue all corruption cases according to merit and transparently as per law. Honourable Justice Javed Iqbal said these remarks while chairing fortnightly meeting of NAB to review its performance at NAB headquarters.

NAB thorough deliberation of the performance of all Regional Bureaus and NAB Headquarters including operation and Prosecution Divisions of the NAB as well as measures taken by the present management of NAB in order to further improve the performance and efficiency of NAB are being reviewed regularly in order to implement the decisions in letter and spirit.

NAB chairman said that NAB has chalked out a very comprehensive Anti Corruption Strategy for eradication of corruption. NAB chairman directed that NAB’s investigation officers zero tolerance policy on the basis of evidence as per law. He said that to close the possibility of any single NAB officer influencing the discharge of official inquiry/investigation, the concept of a “Combined Investigation Team” (CIT) has been introduced where two investigation officers and a legal consultant are working as a team for a fair, transparent and unbiased, inquiry/ investigation. He said that the overall conviction ratio in respected accountability courts is about 70%.

He said that the performance of all Regional Bureau’s of NAB would be conducted on midterm and annual basis at a given criteria under Quantified Grading System in order to review and further improve the performance of officers/officials of NAB as with better quantitative and qualitative improvements in Operational Efficiency Index, rationalized workload, clearly drawn job descriptions and institutional support and supervision.

He said that Monitoring and Evaluation System (MES) has been developed for catering the needs of all concerned having salient features of maintenance of data at each stage including complaint entry, complaint verification, inquiry, investigation, prosecution stage and record preservation of Regional Board Meetings and Executive Board Meetings including case brief was discussed and decided that Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) System will be implemented.