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Thursday March 28, 2024

People should look upon FIA as their saviour: Nisar

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Interior Ch Nisar Ali Khan has said that the people of Pakistan should look towards the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) as their saviour and the agency should work in a way that corrupt and dishonest people should fear it.Chairing a high-level meeting of FIA on Thursday, the

By our correspondents
April 24, 2015
ISLAMABAD: Minister for Interior Ch Nisar Ali Khan has said that the people of Pakistan should look towards the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) as their saviour and the agency should work in a way that corrupt and dishonest people should fear it.
Chairing a high-level meeting of FIA on Thursday, the minister underlined that he had nothing to do with the political background of any individual and he expected good governance and professional commitment from the FIA in carrying out its responsibilities.
Selected media persons were invited to attend the meeting. The interior minister warned the FIA officials if they could not improve their performance, he was going to suggest to the government to close down the agency once and for all.
There would be no tolerance for incompetent and non-professional officials, he said. “If you can’t perform your duties with a proactive mindset, it’s better for you to remain at home and draw salaries regularly. But if you are willing to perform duties with diligence and commitment, come and purge the land of corrupt and fraudulent elements,” he told the officials.
“What sort of problems are the FIA officials facing in the performance of their duties? If senior officials can’t carry out their mandate, I will like to suggest to the government to close this federal agency,” the minister said adding that a mega scam was unearthed in the Employees Old-Age Benefit Institution (EOBI) a few months ago but all the culprits were getting bails one after the other owing to faulty interrogations of the FIA.
Commenting on financial issues and complexities of FIA officials in performance of their duties, the minister said the Interior Ministry was going to devise a mechanism that whatever the FIA officials recovered from corrupt elements, there should be a percentage of it reserved for those who made the recovery. He said the FBR and Traffic Police officials got their share out of recovered and seized money from violators of traffic rules and tax evaders.
“The FIA is blessed with competent and upright senior officers but the ground situation sees corrupt and dishonest elements, who are carrying out their nefarious activites freely,” he said.
“Mega corruption scams in EOBI, PSO, PIA, CDA, and New Islamabad Airport are a question mark on the FIA’s performance,” he said. The FIA should be looked as pride of the country but its poor performance had turned it into a joke, he said. The minister said that there were no instances that FIA had caught any big fish but it took credit by putting down low-key dacoits and corrupt individuals, he said.
The minister said till he was in the office, he would not tolerate any wrongdoing. “Neither will I do any wrongdoing nor will I allow anyone to do it.”
The way the affairs of FIA and Interior Ministry continued in the past will not be tolerated from now onwards, the interior minister said. He said prisoners exchange agreements were reported in the past denoting the process how with the connivance of officials of FIA and other departments, foreigners convicted in severe crimes in foreign countries, proved themselves to be Pakistani citizens through forged documents and were freed from Pakistani jails.
Talking about 64 officials deputed in FIA on deputations and engaged in illegal activities, the minister said all these corrupt officials will not be allowed to sit in their offices and they can get their salaries by sitting at home.
A senior FIA official said on the occasion that approximately 70 percent cases filed with the FIA were related to visa/passports, cheating and embezzlement.The meeting was briefed on the status of Ebrahim Koko Malick, a national of Burma brought to Pakistan on forged documents. In the case of New Benazir Bhutto International Airport Project, Lt Gen Shahid Niaz was convicted and investigations were also in process. The meeting was also briefed on cases relating to the CAA for embezzlement in the purchase of five 777-Boeing planes in which former defence minister Ahmad Mukhtar and Dr Waqar Masood were convicted.
Similarly, the meeting was also briefed on CDA’s Abu Dhabi Tower and PSO scams. An accounts officer of PSO was convicted for embezzling money in the sale of oil and was learnt to be the owner of many petrol pumps.