Govt expects positive change in NAB’s operation

ISLAMABAD: NAB Chairman Justice (R) Javed Iqbal though defends his institution in public; internally he is taking different measures to check the brutal use of authority by the Bureau officials.

Informed sources said the Prime Minister is informed that the Chairman NAB is trying to streamline the Bureau’s functioning in order to ensure that no one is unfairly dealt and the anti-graft body remains focused on cases of mega corruption.

In order to save the civil bureaucracy from unnecessary harassment, it is said, the Chairman NAB has already withdrawn the provincial DGs’ power to arrest officers in BS 17-19.

Additionally, it is said that all concerned within the NAB have been told that no BS-21 and BS-22 officers could be issued notice to appear for questioning in any regional office of the Bureau.

In any case where the BS 21-22 officer is required to appear before NAB, it would be done not only with the consent of the Chairman but he would oversee such an interaction. According to one source, the senior officers from bureaucracy when required would be asked to visit Bureau’s headquarter in Islamabad only. These sources expect that unlike past the NAB will not make routine arrests of bureaucrats but would avoid it unless there are sound reasons. In normal cases of misuse of authority, even the accused would not be arrested during the trial of the reference and before his/her conviction.

The government sources insist that the Chairman NAB is also streamlining the Bureau by improving its prosecution and investigation. It is said that there is no dearth of incompetent officers in the Bureau but the challenge is how to get rid of the deadwood. New appointments in the NAB, the government sources assured would be much better.

These sources said that since it is not easy to revamp the NAB law because of government-opposition divide in the parliament, the Prime Minister is trying to improve the Bureau’s working by convincing the Chairman to check the mindset which has been ruthlessly using its power and thus becoming main reason for harassment of civil bureaucracy and business community.

The government sources said that the recent withdrawal of DGs’ power to arrest of BS 17-19 officer was also the consequence of Prime Minister’s displeasure in public about the arrest of an educationist in KPK by the regional NAB.

Now no arrest of government servants in BS 17 and above could be made by anyone in the NAB without the approval of the Chairman. The Bureaucracy generally complains of the environment of harassment created by the NAB, which in the recent past not only arrested some senior government servants, educationists etc but also summoned for questioning many senior officers including the key members of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s bureaucratic team.

Owing to this situation, the Secretaries Committee during its last few meetings discussed the issue of harassment by the NAB and sought an end to this environment which has held back the civil servants from taking decisions.

In one of these meetings also attended by the Chairman NAB, an assurance was made that BS 21-22 officers would not be mistreated like before. It is relevant to mention here that Prime Minister Imran Khan’s main concern is that in an environment of harassment the bureaucracy will not work which will badly affect the performance of his government.