NAB committed to ending corruption: Qamar Zaman

Budget allocation for the NAB, however, has remained at Rs11.8 billion, which is only 4.4% of recoveries made so far


Our Correspondent October 05, 2015
NAB chief addressing course participants at Sihala police college. PHOTO: EXPRESS

ISLAMABAD:


National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is committed to eradicate menace of corruption from society. The bureau has earned public trust by processing record number of corruption cases and recovering huge amount from corrupt elements.


This was said by NAB Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry while addressing the participants of a training course for the newly-inducted investigators at the Sihala Police Training College here on Monday.

“The bureau is striving to rid the nation of corruption and corrupt practices by adopting zero tolerance policy across-the-board.”

He said the bureau received over 40,000 applications in 2014, against 19,900 in 2013. It recovered Rs18.831 billion of looted money during the last one year, bringing the total recovery to Rs264.4 billion so far, Chaudhry said.

The budget allocation for the NAB, however, has remained at Rs11.8 billion, which is only 4.4% of recoveries made so far, he added.

Chaudhry said NAB completed 585 inquiries last year as compared to 243 in 2013 and completed 188 investigations in 2014 as compared to 129 in 2013. The bureau filed 208 references last year as compared to 135 during 2013.

Giving details of the recoveries, Chaudhry said Rs5.408 billion were recovered in 2014 against Rs2.7 billion in 2013 under voluntary return programme and Rs13.423 billion under plea bargain in 2014 against Rs500 million in 2013.

The bureau, he said, also recovered and returned billions of rupees to victims of ‘Double Shah’, Modaraba scam, from housing societies and forex companies.

The chairman said a concept of combined investigation has been introduced. Investigation officers and prosecution are working as a team to ensure transparency and unbiased investigations.

The chairman said a system had been formulated to standardise selection of cases. Priority is being given to cases as per the nature, the amount involved, the social impact and number of affected persons, he said.

Resource gap has been filled through fresh inductions, he said, adding that 260 officers were inducted in 2014.

The officers are being trained to strengthen our team in the field, he said. They have been selected through a very competitive process. Out of 45,900 applicants, only 122 were selected.

He said NAB is trying to create awareness among the people about effects of corruption.

Special emphasis is being laid on setting up character building societies in educational institutes across the country to build an effective edifice against corruption.

It is encouraging that for the first time anti corruption has been made a part of development agenda in the context of governance.

Earlier in his address of welcome, Sihala Police Academy Commander Sohail Habib Tajik highlighted the importance of training and said a standardised syllabus for all investigation officers had been prepared to ensure quality and uniformity.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 6th, 2015.

COMMENTS (4)

S.R.H. Hashmi | 8 years ago | Reply The National Accountability (NAB) Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry proudly announced recovery of just under Rs. 19 billion of corruption money last year, which brought the bureau’s cumulative recovery from the time of its inception to under Rs.265 billion. Now, compared with the daily corruption figure in Pakistan given by a former NAB chairman Admiral (retd) Fasih Bukhari as Rs. 8 billion, the collection figures quoted by Qamar Zaman Chaudhry hardly seem spectacular. While the NAB Chairman may be ‘committed’ to end corruption, the track record of his department hardly gives some hope of achieving that noble objective anytime soon or even in the distant future for that matter. Qamar Zaman Chaudhry also claims of adopting zero tolerance towards corruption. Now, I would think that most of the recoveries made by his department are through plea-bargains whereby the culprit is let off after returning the corruption money. Obviously, this leaves the culprit no worse off than he was before committing the corruption, which means that the process does not involve any real punishment to the criminal. Therefore, this approach could hardly qualify as demonstrating ‘zero tolerance towards corruption’ but rather ‘accommodating’ corruption by removing the deterrence of imprisonment and all that goes with it. And that means that the NAB is not such a success story as Qamar Zaman Chaudhry makes it out to be. Karachi
Aziz | 8 years ago | Reply Too much hot air and talk! No action. Perfect recipe to perpetuate corruption while protecting your own jobs.
VIEW MORE COMMENTS
Replying to X

Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.

For more information, please see our Comments FAQ