NAB receives 343,356 complaints so far

Islamabad: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has so far received about 343,356 complaints from individuals, private and public organizations and recovered around Rs287 billion from corrupt persons.

The ill-gotten money was deposited in national exchequer, NAB Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry said this while chairing a monthly coordination meeting held here to review progress on previous decisions.

He said NAB has so far authorized 11,581 complaint verifications, 7,587 inquiries, 3846 investigations, filed 2808 corruption references in respective accountability courts and overall conviction ratio is about 76 per cent.

NAB's prime focus is on cases of cheating public at large by fraudulent financial companies, bank frauds, wilful bank loan defaults, misuse of authority and embezzlement of state funds by government servants etc.

He said figures of complaints, inquiries and investigations are almost double as compared to same period of 2015 to 2017. The comparative figures for last three years are indicative of hard work being put in by all ranks of NAB staff in an atmosphere of renewed energy and dynamism, where fight against corruption is being taken as a national duty.

Increase in number of complaints also reflects enhanced public trusted in the NAB. The PILDAT in its report supports the position stated above as 42 per cent people trusted NAB against 30 per cent for police and 29 per cent for government officials. The recent report of Transparency International also rated Pakistan in Corruption Perception Index (CPI) from 126 to 116.