ISLAMABAD: Chairman National Accountability Bureau Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal has said the World Economic Forum (WEF) and Transparency International Pakistan (TIP) appreciated NAB’s Awareness and Prevention Strategy.
“The effective Awareness and Prevention Strategy has started yielding positive results, which were appreciated by the World Economic Forum and Transparency International Pakistan in order to make people aware about the ill-effects of corruption throughout the country,” he said in a statement on Sunday.
Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal said corruption being the root cause of almost all evils, gives birth to multifarious problems, including nepotism, favoritism and negating meritocracy, transparency and accountability. He said due to the initiatives taken by the present management of NAB, the eradication of corruption has become the voice of Pakistan.
Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal said that NAB strongly believes in zero tolerance policy against corruption. He said NAB’s anti-corruption campaign is carried widely for awareness and prevention of corruption besides enforcement across the board during 2020. He said the excellent feedback was received about NAB’s effective and proactive awareness and prevention campaign in 2020, adding NAB’s awareness and prevention campaign is to continue during 2021 in order to make people aware about the ill effects of corruption.
He said NAB hopes that joint efforts of all stakeholders can collaborate to check corruption and corrupt practices before happening with the help of all stakeholders, civil society, media and the people at large.
He said NAB has the mandate to carry out awareness and prevention activities against corruption in pursuance of Section 33C of National Accountability Ordinance (NAO), 1999.
Under NAB’s awareness and prevention campaign across the country, he said the NAB has been engaging different governmental, non-governmental organizations, the media, civil society and other segments of society in order to make people aware at large. He said during 2020, NAB’s awareness campaign was effectively highlighted by the Media Wing of NAB in print and electronic media free of cost without spending any budget of NAB on the media campaign.
On the directions of the chairman NAB, following initiatives were taken.
a. Due to NAB’s efforts, all ATM machines of all scheduled banks carry NAB’s message “Say No to Corruption” across the country in order to aware people about the ill effects of corruption.
b. NAB and Higher Education Commission (HEC) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for creating awareness amongst the students of various universities and colleges. Due to this collaboration, over 50,000 character building societies have been established in various universities and colleges across the country, so that students may be made aware about the ill effects of corruption at an early age.
c. NAB and SNGPL, IESCO, LESCO, GEPCO, FESCO and K-Electric joined hands to print NAB messages in order to disseminate awareness about the ill effects of corruption. IESCO and other organisations have started printing NAB messages on electricity and gas bills.
d. NAB in collaboration with PTA has disseminated the message “Say No to Corruption" to all mobile phone subscribers across the country through different mobile phone companies on the eve of the International Anti-Corruption Day in order to make people belonging to all segments of society aware about the ill effects of corruption.
e. NAB in collaboration with the Federal Film Censor Board continuously aired NAB’s video message “Say No to Corruption" in all cinema houses of the country. NAB's initiative has been appreciated by the public at large but due to Covid-19, all cinemas are closed.
g. NAB's message “Say No to Corruption” is being printed on all government tenders issued for publication in newspapers in Balochistan and Gilgit Baltistan.