No truth in NAB chief’s statement: Punjab govt spokesman

LAHORE: A spokesman for the Punjab government has rejected the statement of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Justice (R) Javed Iqbal that some departments of the provincial government are not cooperating with the Bureau.

In a statement issued Friday, the spokesman said there was no truth in the statement as all the departments of the Punjab government were fully cooperating with NAB.

He said a person working on an important seat of NAB chairman should avoid giving such a statement on the public platform against the government whose hallmarks were transparency and merit.

“If he (NAB chairman), or his department, has had any complaint to any of the provincial government departments, he should have communicated through the official level to redress it,” the spokesman said.

The NAB chairman had also warned that he would take to task all those government officials who avoided cooperating with NAB in future correspondence.

Meanwhile, National Accountability Bureau (NAB), in response to the Punjab government spokesman’s clarification, stated that the Bureau had written four letters to the Punjab government for provision of record besides many verbal requests by the Lahore NAB to the Punjab government.

Responding to the Punjab government spokesman, the NAB spokesman said it issued a press release on January 23, 2018, after report for non-provision of record from the Punjab government and shown displeasure and asked the Punjab chief secretary to provide the record.

The NAB spokesman said on Feb 8, 2018, the NAB chairman took notice of non-provision of record by the Punjab government and asked the bureaucracy in Punjab to provide the record to NAB and abide by laws as non-provision of information/record to NAB, which is conducting inquiry of 56 public limited companies of the Punjab, is against the law and come under hampering with inquiry of NAB laws. The NAB spokesman said clarification of the Punjab government is, therefore, not based on facts. “NAB has used all channels of communications for getting record of 56 public limited companies of the Punjab but still NAB has not received complete record,” he said.