Corruption breeds injustice, poverty: NAB chairman

ISLAMABAD: NAB Chairman Justice (R) Javed Iqbal said for discouraging money-laundering, Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML & CFT) Cell has been established.

“This shows the Bureau’s commitment and compliance towards the resolution of the international community,” he said in a statement Thursday. He said corruption breeds injustice, poverty, undermines social, economic norms of societies and affects the countries around the world. “The NAB being the focal agency of Pakistan under United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) is determined to weed out this scourge of corruption and to make Pakistan corruption-free by adopting “accountability for all policy”,” he added.

He said the NAB being the apex anti-corruption agency and mandated to eliminate corruption, corrupt practices, is operating through a three-pronged strategy of awareness, prevention and enforcement. In order to eradicate this evil from society, he said the NAB has consistently engaged all stakeholders and is incessantly combating this national menace with unflinching resolve through its multi-pronged strategy, which has started yielding remarkable results.

In addition, he said the NAB has played a role of torch-bearer for other anti-corruption organisations by putting a maximum limit of 10 months for expeditious disposal of – white-collar mega corruption cases.

He said the NAB is also the founding chairman of the Saarc Anti-Corruption Forum and is a role model for Saarc countries. He also pointed out that due to its strong resolve against corruption, the Bureau’s endeavours have been appreciated and endorsed by different reputed national and international organisations like PILDAT, Mishal Pakistan, Transparency International, World Economic Forum that testifies people’s confidence and trust in NAB’s performance.

Similarly, he said having confidence in the impressive performance of the NAB, China has also signed an MoU with NAB to oversee CPEC projects being undertaken in Pakistan. He said under Section-33 of NAO, 1999, NAB is mandated for awareness and prevention and under NAB’s awareness and prevention strategy, NAB has engaged different governmental, non-governmental organisations, media, civil society, and other segments of society to join hands with NAB’s awareness and prevention drive to create awareness among the people, especially the youth, universities/colleges and schools students.

He said a MoU with HEC has also been signed by NAB to create awareness among students against corruption as youth is considered a cutting edge in this fight. Due to this effective three-pronged anti-corruption strategy, he said the NAB since its inception has recovered an amount of Rs814 billion while in the current year it recovered Rs323 billion. Beside this, he said currently 1273 references are under process in accountability courts. In addition, NAB’s conviction ratio is about 66 percent, which is one of the best conviction ratios as compared to other sister organizations.