ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Chairman National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Qamar Zaman Chaudhry on Monday said the Bureau has recovered Rs 265.977 billion looted public money since its inception through prosecution of corrupts.
This is a great achievement. The allocation to NAB for its working since creation is Rs 10.111 billion which is only 3.7 % of recoveries made by NAB, he said.
He was chairing a meeting held here to review overall performance of NAB at its Headquarters.
The Chairman said during 2015, NAB has recovered Rs 4.5 billion of looted money and it occurred only due to efforts and systematic and gradual improvements that NAB has been brought back on rails by its present management.
He said increase in applications to NAB is reflective of people’s confidence in our work, adding that the litmus test of efficiency and effectiveness of NAB’s efforts lies in number of cases processed.
NAB Chief said in term of inquiries, NAB has received 3,00,009 complaints since its inception and authorized 6662 and 3391 investigations. As regards, the corruption references filed in respective Accountability Courts, NAB has filed 2,451 corruption references since its inception. The conviction rate of NAB is approximately 70 percent.
Qamar Zaman Ch. said the recent report of Transparency International (TI) for year 2015 rated Pakistan in Corruption Perception Index (CPI) from 126 to 117 which is a great achievement for Pakistan due to NAB’s efforts.
“We have to redouble our efforts to come up to expectations associated with NAB but I must bring on record the hard work and commitment shown by all ranks of NAB officers/officials towards their national duty particularly in the last two years,” he added.
The Chairman said youth is our future and NAB had decided to involve and sensitize them thorough its holistic and innovative approach of Awareness and Prevention.
He said NAB in collaboration with Higher Education Commission (HEC) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) as over 10,000 Character Building Societies (CBSs) have been established by NAB in universities and colleges to create awareness against corruption.
He said NAB has organized lectures, workshops, seminars, essay writing competitions, declamation contests, poster/painting competitions in educational institutions and organized awareness campaign throughout the country.
The Chairman said present leadership of NAB has taken a number of measures to correcting the structural deficiencies, improving efficiency and create an enabling environment and recruited 110 investigation officers through NTS.
Besides, the Bureau introduced Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS) and conducted about 400 refresher and capacity building training courses. Also introduced 10 months timelines for NAB operations, two months for complaint verification, four months for inquiry and four months for investigation, revision of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), Quantified Grading System
for objective performance evaluation, establishment of three Regional Bureaus at Multan, Sukkur and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), establishment of Forensic Science Laboratory, Internal Accountability Mechanism (IAM) and Monitoring and Evaluation System (MES).
Qamar Zaman Ch. said Monitoring and Evaluation System is an important management tool to track progress and it facilitates in decision making as well as establishes links between the past, present and future actions.
He said the initiatives undertaken are bearing fruits and started yielding dividends resulting in optimal utilization of resources and improved efficiency. This has been acknowledged by independent monitoring agencies as well.
NAB Chief said NAB strongly believes in Zero Tolerance Policy against corruption across the board as per law. NAB hopes that joint efforts of all stakeholders can collaborate to check corruption and corrupt practices before happening with help of all stakeholders, civil society, media and people at large and bring sustainable systematic changes to governance structure of the country.
Source: APP
