NAB committed to eradicate corruption: Qamar

Islamabad
National Accountability (NAB) Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry said NAB is committed to eradicate corruption across the country by using all its resources. He said the menace of corruption leads to injustice, mistrust, lawlessness and creates a sense of insecurity, hopelessness and despondency. In our own peculiar case the twin menace of corruption and poverty are closely interlinked. A surge in one has a direct bearing on the other.
He said this while addressing a seminar on ‘Accountability: A vital pillar of Good Governance,” held at Bahria University, Islamabad.
The particular deadliness of the disease lies in its self-perpetuation. Any corrupt act or practice sets in motion a vicious cycle in which one act of corruption becomes the source of further acts of corruption. But many of the most convincing arguments in support of the fight against corruption are little known to the public and remain unused in debates. He said corruption has become a cultural norm. In corrupt societies, everyone ‘condemns’ bribery, but everyone gives and takes bribes, because nothing is getting done without that. To stop it all, governments have to play a leading role and make good governance as their priority because it is good governance that ensures getting maximum benefits for the minimum cost in terms of efficiency, productivity and quality of life. Good governance means authorities becoming responsive and utilising public funds prudently to ensure optimum return for every rupee spent from national exchequer.
He said National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was established in these compelling circumstances to fight and eradicate corruption in a holistic and integrated manner. NAB is essentially a complaint driven organisation. An exhaustive system of cognizance of cases has been formulated to standardise the selection of cases for processing. Priority is assigned keeping in view the case nature, the amount of monies involved, the social impact and the number of affectees. In a recent consultative session the prioritised areas have been further revamped. It has been decided that NAB being the apex anti-corruption body of the country should restrict itself to inquiry, investigation and prosecution of mega corruption cases, and not dissipate its efforts & energies in small scale corruption cases for which the Provincial Anti-Corruption Establishments and FIA are best suited to pursue. Also top most priority will also be accorded to complaints of corruption against NAB’s own officials. NAB’s personnel need to follow a strict Code of Conduct and zero tolerance against corruption is to be visibly exhibited.
NAB has prosecuted the corrupts and has recovered over Rs4.5 billion of looted public money in 2014. Bringing the total recovery to date to Rs262.008 billion. The allocation from government to NAB for its working since its creation is Rs12.038 billion. This is only 4.5% of recoveries made by NAB. The number of complaints received in 2013 were 19,900 which is double of the number of 10,500 complaints received in 2014 from the previous year. The increase in complaints to NAB is reflective of people’s confidence in our work. To speed up disposal of pending enforcement work, it has been decided to fix time limit for each step of enforcement i.e Complaint Verification, Inquiry & Investigation. A total of 10 months have been laid down from start — to finish. Taking stock of the pendency it was decided in January 2015 that all pending enforcement work shall be completed by 30th June 2015. This undertaking has been voluntarily submitted in the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan also which has guided us immensely towards improvements in our working. It is in this context that PILDAT in its latest report has rated NAB’s performance at 42% based on public survey. This compares quite favourably to 29% public confidence in police and 26% in government offices working. The rate of success of NAB’s prosecution work in all courts is 70%.