Corruption, bribe thrive on systematic weaknesses: NAB chief

ISLAMABAD: NAB Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry said that corruption and bribery thrive on systematic weaknesses. 

“The NAB aims at eliminating those weaknesses and enhancing integrity and transparency by preventing the acts of corruption and corrupt practices with the help of people of Pakistan at large,” he said this Friday while chairing a meeting Friday to review monthly progress of the decisions taken in the last coordination meeting held at the NAB headquarters. 

He said the NAB was established to eradicate corruption in a holistic and integrated manner. “The NAB is striving to accomplish its mission ie to rid the nation of corruption and corrupt practices,” he added. 

He said the NAB is essentially a complaint-driven organisation and its operational methodology has set three stages for proceeding of cases complaint verification, inquiry and investigation. “The NAB’s personnel need to follow a strict code of conduct and zero tolerance policy for eradication of corruption,” he further added. 

He said the NAB has started ‘Awareness and Prevention Campaign’ on “Say no to Corruption” besides enforcement drive to arresting corrupt persons and taking them to task throughout the country. 

He said the NAB is mandated to carry out ‘Awareness and Prevention’ functions against corruption in pursuance of Section 33-C NAO 1999. Under its proactive approach, NAB has been engaging different governmental and non-governmental organisations and civil society in fight against corruption. 

NAB has intensified its awareness campaign against corruption and is using various platforms to spread the message “say no to corruption”.  In this context, NAB has written a letter to governor, State Bank as it is the regulatory body of all scheduled banks proposing that all cheques carry NAB message “say no to corruption” across the country to make the people aware of the ill-effects of corruption. 

NAB chief had tasked DG Awareness and Prevention to conduct study of the utility and effectiveness of ‘One Window Operations’ (OWO) being operated at Capital Development Authority and Chief Commissioner Office, Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) regarding public requests/grievances/complaints in all such government departments to give prompt and efficient response/services to the public at large at one single place with the purpose to reduce the culture of giving bribes to corrupt officials/officers and to avoid lengthy queues at the office.

The outcome of OWO facility at CDA and ICT will be examined and recommendations if any will be forwarded to departments concerned after approval of the competent authority.    He said the role of print and electronic media is very important in eliminating corruption from the country as newspapers are the best source to convey/spread the anti-corruption message.

He said NAB has proposed all newspapers to join hands with it by printing NAB message on the front page of their newspapers.