NAB determined to weed out corruption: chairman

ISLAMABAD: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Justice (R) Javed Iqbal said that corruption breeds injustice, poverty, undermines social, economic norms of societies and affects the countries around the world.

“The NAB being the focal agency of Pakistan under United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) is determined to weed out this scourge of corruption and to make Pakistan Corruption free by adopting "Accountability for All" policy,” he said in a statement on Sunday.

In order to discourage money laundering, NAB chairman said it has established “Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML & CFT) Cell”. “This shows the Bureau’s commitment and compliance towards the resolution of the international community,” he said.

He said NAB is also the founding Chairman of the SAARC Anti-Corruption Forum and is a role model for SAARC countries. “It is also pointed out that due to its strong resolve against corruption, the Bureau’s endeavours have been appreciated and endorsed by different reputed national and international organizations like PILDAT, Mishal Pakistan, Transparency International, World Economic Forum that testifies people’s confidence and trust upon NAB’s performance,” he said.

Justice (R) Javed Iqbal said the NAB being the apex anti-corruption agency and mandated to eliminate corruption, corrupt practices, is operating through a three pronged strategy of Awareness, Prevention and Enforcement. In order to eradicate this evil from society, it has consistently engaged all stakeholders and is incessantly combating this national menace with unflinching resolve through its multi-pronged strategy, which has started yielding remarkable results.

In addition, he said the NAB has played a role of torch bearer for other anti-corruption organisations by putting a maximum limit of 10 months for expeditious disposal of – white-collar mega corruption cases.

Similarly, he said having confidence in the impressive performance of NAB, China has also signed an MoU with NAB to oversee CPEC projects being undertaken in Pakistan. He said that under Section-33 of NAO, 1999, NAB is mandated for awareness and prevention.

Under NAB’s Awareness and Prevention Strategy, he said the NAB has engaged different governmental, non-governmental organisations, media, civil society, and other segments of society to join hands with NAB’s awareness and prevention drive to create awareness among the people, especially the youth, universities/colleges and schools students.

In this regard, he said an MoU with HEC has also been signed by NAB to create awareness among students against corruption as youth is considered a cutting edge in this fight. “Due to this effective three pronged anti-corruption strategy, NAB since its inception, has recovered an amount of Rs814 billion while in the year 2020, NAB recovered Rs323 billion,” he said.

Besides this, he said currently 1,273 references are under process in accountability courts. In addition, NAB’s conviction ratio is about 66 percent, which is one of the best conviction ratios as compared to other sister organisations.