CM vows to purge KP of corruption

PESHAWAR: Expressing concern over increasing corruption in the country, Chief Minister Pervez Khattak on Friday vowed to go to any extent against corruption to weed-out the evil from the province.

Chief Minister said in his address as chief guest at a programme titled “Zero Corruption Way to 100 Percent Development” organised in connection with the World Anti-Corruption Day by the NAB Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The chief minister said that there was no room for tolerating people involved in corruption in the manifesto of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI).“The government agencies including NAB, Anti-Corruption and Ehtesab Commission should not feel proud to recover 10 percent illegal money as compared to previous years. This increase shows that the corruption is increasing in society and the agencies have failed in elimination of corruption,” the chief minister said.

The chief minister added that corruption could not be eliminated from the government institutions until and unless there is zero percent interference.To a question, he replied that there was a dire need of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ehtesab Commission as the corrupt people were getting clean chit through Voluntary Return (VR) and Plea Bargain of the NAB. He said that in the presence of VR and plea bargain, corruption is increasing in the country.

He said the government made historic legislations including Right to Information Act and Whistleblower Protection and Vigilance Commission Act, 2016 to make the system transparent and eliminate corruption from government departments.

In his welcome address, Shahzad Saleem, director general of the NAB Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said that the NAB had also adopted awareness policy and were organising seminars and workshops in the province.

About the NAB KP performance, the DG said that the NAB KP in the past 13 years made recovery of Rs1,415 million, but he in his three years period made recovery of Rs2531 million. He said that in the past 13 years, the NAB KP arrested 424 people in corruption cases, while the bureau arrested 352 people under his three-year tenure. A former ambassador of Pakistan to Afghanistan Rustam Shah Mohmand and senior journalist Saleem Safi also spoke on the occasion.