‘NAB gives priority to white collar crime cases’

ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau Chairman, Justice (R) Javed Iqbal, said that NAB gives priority to mega corruption white collar crime cases as per law as the corruption is mother of all evils as corruption undermines economic development and deprives deserving persons of their due right as per law.

“Pakistan is committed to [the] United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) in eradicating corruption through its three pronged anti-corruption strategy of awareness, prevention and enforcement,” he said in a statement on Saturday.

The NAB chairman said since its inception it received about 399,861 complaints from individuals and private / public organisations. During this period, NAB authorised 13,180 complaint verifications, 8,587 inquiries, 4,124 investigations and filed 3,401 corruption references in the respective accountability courts.

Currently, 1,211 corruption references are under trial in accountability courts across the country. “The figures of complaints, inquiries and investigations are almost double as compared to the same period of 2017 to 2018. The comparative figures for the latest one year are indicative of the hard work being put in by all ranks of the NAB staff in an atmosphere of renewed energy and dynamism, where fight against corruption is being taken as a national duty,” he said.

The NAB chief said increase in the number of complaints is also reflects enhanced public trust in NAB, and its prime focus is on cases of cheating public at large by fraudulent financial companies, money laundering, bank frauds, willful bank loan defaults, misuse of authority and embezzlement of state funds by government servants.

“Since NAB’s inception, one of its major achievements has been the recovery of around Rs297 billion of ill-gotten money which was deposited in the national exchequer which is a remarkable achievement of NAB,” he said.

The NAB chairman said starting from the year 2017 which can be called basically a year of reinvigoration of NAB, we have moved with new zeal and effort after through detailed introspection and analysis of organisational weaknesses, overhaul of procedures and all pillars of the organisation ie operations, prosecution, human resource development and awareness and prevention have been reactivated. He said that NAB has established its first Forensic Science Lab (FSL) in NAB, Rawalpindi, which has facilities of digital forensics, questioned documents and fingerprint analysis.

“As per the report of Transparency International (TI), Pakistan’s ranking in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) has improved, adding that Pakistan was considering role model in South Asian countries in its efforts against corruption. This is a great achievement for Pakistan due to NAB efforts,” he said.

Justice (R) Javed Iqbal said the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) in the Pakistan, as per Transparency International (TI) report, it was declining consistently due to steps taken by the present management of NAB against the corrupt. Besides TI, the independent national and international watchdogs like PLIDAT and World Economic Forum had also appreciated Pakistan’s efforts to curb corruption in Pakistan. Similarly, he said Gilani and Gallop recent survey conducted in Oct 2018 has indicated that 59 percent people of Pakistan have full faith in NAB which is an ample evidence of NAB’s across the board accountability.