PHOTO: FILE
NAB is an independent institution that follows orders of the court as a guideline, he said while speaking to the media on Monday. "A new voluntary return scheme has been introduced, replacing the plea bargain and old voluntary return," he said. According to the new voluntary return scheme, not only will the stolen money be recovered but the persons against whom corruption charges are proven will be barred from holding public office for the rest of their lives, he said.
Besides this, any government official against whom corruption charges are proven will not be reinstated to his previous post, he assured.
The NAB chairperson said the difference between the plea bargain and voluntary return and the new voluntary return is that earlier NAB referred cases to the court once its investigation was over but now all the cases will be monitored by the court from beginning to end. "So far NAB has recovered Rs285 billion which was looted from the national exchequer," said Chaudhry. "The purpose of NAB is to recover loses of the national exchequer and the people," he explained. Giving an example of the Double Shah case of Wazirabad, he said that NAB has recovered Rs4 billion, which has been returned back to the people whom Double Shah had looted.
Establishing regional offices in Multan and Sukkur was aimed at redressing the problems of the people belonging to Southern Punjab and Upper Sindh, respectively, he said. Sharing the performance of the NAB, Sukkur office, Chaudhry said that 5,500 complaints were received during 2016, out of which 12 references were sent to court. Earlier, the chairperson chaired a meeting of NAB, Sukkur officers and reviewed their performance. Director-general of NAB, Sukkur Altaf Bawany presented his office's performance.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 17th, 2017.
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