NAB chief dismayed at failure of regional offices to complete queries

ISLAMABAD: Chairman National Accountability Bureau Justice (R) Javed Iqbal on Tuesday took notice over the failure of the various NAB regional offices in steering the pending complaint verification to their logical conclusion within the specified period and gave another two months as per prescribed timeframe and come up to the logical conclusion and inform the complainant about fate of their complaints accordingly.

Chairman NAB Justice (R) Javed Iqbal chaired a meeting to review the NAB's performance of December 2017 at NAB Headquarters. The chairman directed NAB Multan to seek clarification from officers concerned to specify reasons of their failure to complete inquiries in four months and investigations in another four months meaning that in 8 months after complaint verification in two months as NAB has prescribed 10 months timeframe from complaint verification to filling of reference in respective Accountability Court and sought report within seven days.

Taking notice of slow progress report of Sukkur regions officials, the chairman directed the concerned to complete their inquiries within specified period and submit report of specifying explanation of the investigative officers within next seven days.

The chairman NAB also sought report from NAB Karachi and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to explain their reasons for not concluding pending 50 cases and including 40 cases by NAB Karachi which are pending for the last five years.

He directed action against the responsible of delay and submission of the report within next seven days. It is to be mentioned here that 499 inquiries and 287 investigations are under process in Regional Bureaus of NAB and have not completed in prescribed timeframe of 10 months as per SOP/law.

The under trial references including 347 of NAB Lahore, 275 references of NAB Karachi, 185 references of NAB KP, 97 references of NAB Baluchistan, 171 references of NAB Rawalpindi, 34 references of NAB Multan and 29 references of NAB Sukkur are under trial in respective Accountability Courts throughout the country.