NAB to deal with corruption withiron hand: chairman

ISLAMABAD: Chairman National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Justice (R) Javed Iqbal Wednesday said considering corruption as cancer, NAB has chalked out a comprehensive National Anti-Corruption Strategy to eradicate corruption across the board by adopting “Accountability for All” Policy as the figures of complaints, inquiries and investigations are almost double as compared to the figures of same period of 2017 to 2018.

“The comparative figures for the last one year from Oct 2017 to September 2018 are indicative of hard work being put in by all ranks of NAB officers in an atmosphere of renewed energy and dynamism, where fight against corruption is being taken as a national duty,” he said while chairing a meeting on Wednesday to review overall performance of NAB at NAB Headquarters.

The chairman NAB said that the NAB is committed to root out corruption in all its forms and manifestations across the board with iron hands. He said that NAB has established state of the art Forensic Science LAB in Islamabad which has facilities of digital forensics, questioned documents and fingerprint analysis which will be utilised for further improvements in the quality of inquiries and investigations in all respect.

The chairman NAB said that due to prescribed timeline of 10 months for efficient, effective and expeditious disposal of cases from complaint verification-to-inquiry-to-investigation and finally to a reference in the Accountability Court, NAB has filed 440 corruption references from Oct 2017 to September 2018 which is a record achievement.

He said that NAB has introduced a new concept of Combine Investigation Team (CIT) in order to benefit from the experience and collective wisdom of senior supervisory officers, a system of CIT comprising of director, additional director, investigation officer and a senior legal counsel has been put in place. “This is not only lending quality to the work but also ensuring that no single individual can influence the official proceedings of NAB,” he said. He said that Transparency International (TI), PILDAT, Mishal and World Economic forum have appreciated NAB’s efforts in eradication of corruption.

Justice (R) Javed Iqbal said the NAB in a very short span of time has established over fifty thousand character building societies in universities/colleges to create awareness against corruption which has proved very successful and now young generation is aware about the ill-effects of corruption and has joined hands with NAB to eradicate corruption from the country.