NAB chairman reviews performance of operation, prosecution divisions

ISLAMABAD: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Justice (Retd) Javed Iqbal, Wednesday said the NAB is committed to work with absolute professionalism, transparently and on merit with the realization that eradication of corruption is our national duty and it strongly believes in forcing the corrupt to stand in the dock and depositing the looted money into the national exchequer.

“The country owed $94 billion of foreign debt and the NAB is committed to recover looted money from the corrupt by pursuing zero tolerance policy. NAB would provide sufficient evidence against the corrupt to enable the courts to convict them,” he said while chairing a fortnightly meeting to review performance of operation, prosecution divisions at NAB Headquarters on Wednesday.

The NAB chairman said NAB has filed 105 mega corruption cases in the respected accountability courts, 41 have been disposed of as per law, out of a total of 179 cases. He directed all Regional Bureaus of NAB to conduct complaint verification, inquiries and investigations within the prescribed time frame of 10 months.

Justice (Retd) Javed Iqbal said that NAB has placed an effective monitoring and evaluation system to evaluate performance of regional NAB offices on regular basis. He directed NAB officials to file case in respected accountability courts after collecting solid evidence against all accused persons with relevant documents of each case as per law.

He said that NAB strongly believes in self-respect of every one. “The whole nation pinned hopes on NAB for elimination of corruption. NAB officers must adhere themselves to law of the land as over affiliation are only with the state of Pakistan,” he said.

He directed all regional Bureaus of NAB to take mega corruption cases, white collar crimes cases to their logical conclusion as per law. He said that NAB has established a Forensic Laboratory in Islamabad.

He said corruption could be eliminated from the country with iron hands by utilizing all resources by strictly observing zero tolerance policy across the board. He said that Pakistan is considered as role model for SAARC Countries in eradication of Corruption due to NAB’s efforts.

He said Pakistan is the first Chairman of SAARC Anti-Corruption Forum which is great achievement for Pakistan due to NAB. “This is just because of the proactive anti-corruption strategy of awareness, prevention and enforcement adopted by NAB,” he said.