Three-year record: FIA performance slumps to new low

Lack of resources contribute to poor showing, insiders say

ISLAMABAD:

The country’s premier Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), smarting from a 28% staff shortage, is running its affairs with deputationists, most of whom have neither relevant qualifications nor experience to investigate high-profile cases.

“We are operating with only 22 revolvers, 35 pistols, 30 shotguns, 60 rifles and 129 vehicles across the country,” a top FIA official told The Express Tribune on Tuesday. The FIA has borrowed services of 276 officers from various departments during the last five years as it was facing a shortage of more than 1,200 staffers, revealed the official. He was attending the meeting where authorities briefed Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on February 2, 2015.



The investigative agency, with an existing strength of 3,109, is facing a shortage of ammunition. “This shortage has almost stalled the investigation process of several high-profile cases,” the official observed.

The top intelligence body, which has an estimated Rs220 million as operational budget, is facing a shortfall of 133 vehicles for the mobility of its staff. This affects the monitoring of 14 airports, eight land routes and four seaports, and some 6,433km, an internal document reads.

Around 2,300 cases are pending with the immigration wing. There is a shortage of over 500 executive staff in the immigration wing where 2,798 posts were sanctioned, explained the official. “Though we recruited some 400 constables and other staffers, it did not overcome scarcity of manpower,” he explained. Some 2,700 cases are pending with the anti-corruption wing, he said, adding that the FIA could not even succeed in deputing a prosecutor for former premier Benazir Bhutto’s case, after the murder of one of the prosecutors. He added that the FIA was unable to pursue 968 pending cases in various courts.

It requires Rs55 million to pursue investigation of thousands of pending cases urgently, he revealed. More than 803 economic crime inquiries are pending with the agency which only disposed of 14 cases in 2013, while it had disposed of 686 such inquiries in 2012, reveal authentic documents. Over 820 cyber-crime related inquiries and cases are still pending with the FIA.

The agency’s interception performance has gone down rapidly as it conducted 6,611 interceptions in 2011, 4,382 in 2012 and 3,164 interceptions in 2013.

Many senior officers cite two factors as reasons behind FIA’s poor showing: one, a rotation policy is not observed in the agency and, two, there is a mismatch between the staffers’ qualifications and experience with what they are assigned to do.

Many officers have been working with the agency for years, a practice which violates the existing rules. The officers quoted several examples, particularly of additional director Khizer Saleem of district management group, and Nabid Baig, an engineer by profession in the National Highway Authority, who were never repatriated to their parent departments.

According to some basic rules of the rotation policy for officers, he/she must do service for three years in the province of first allocation; three years in the federal government and then three years each in the province of second allocation.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and Secretary Interior Shahid Khan remained inaccessible. The interior ministry has no official spokesperson.

However, former interior minister Rehman Malik stressed upon induction of new officers equipped with latest technology for overhauling the FIA. “As the front-runner agency, the government has to revamp it. Benazir Bhutto and Pervez Musharraf were a test case for it [FIA] where it failed to deliver,” Malik observed.

Former DG FIA Zafarullah Khan stressed upon hunting for talented officers to get the desired results. “Send all the deputationists to their parent departments, supply modern ammunition to the force, strengthen the immigration and anti-corruption wings - this is the solution to this looming crisis,” he suggested.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 7^th, 2015.