‘NAB world’s best investigation agency’

Bureau's Karachi DG reviews anti-graft body's performance

KARACHI: It is a record achievement that in a span of 16 years, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has become the best investigation agency in the world. Transparency International (TI) rated Pakistan 126 from 175 in 2014 and to 117 in 2015 because of NAB's effective anti-corruption strategy that has started yielding dividends.

This was stated by the anti-graft agency's Karachi director-general (DG) Lt Col (retd) Sirajul Naeem at a ceremony on Saturday.

Taking his point further, Naeem informed that the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency and Mishal Pakistan have indicated that 42% of people have confidence in NAB, as opposed to the Federal Investigation Agency and police.

Making a reference to Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah's address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan in which Jinnah termed bribery and corruption as the 'biggest curses' and 'poison', the regional DG said NAB Karachi is committed to eradicating corruption by adopting a zero tolerance policy across the board, in line with directions by NAB chairperson Qamar Zaman Chaudhry.

"NAB is essentially a complaint driven organisation that was established to eradicate corruption and looted money from the corrupt," said Naeem, adding that Chaudhry, after assumption of office in 2013, has chalked out a very comprehensive three-pronged operational strategy: awareness, prevention and enforcement. NAB's operational methodology has set three stages for proceeding of cases from complaint verification to inquiry, inquiry to investigation and finally filing of reference in the respective accountability courts, as per the law.

The year 2014 can be termed the year of re-invigoration of NAB, claimed Naeem, explaining that to close the possibility of any single NAB official influencing the discharge of official business, the concept of a 'combined investigation team' was introduced, where two investigation officers and a legal consultant work as a team for a fair, transparent and unbiased inquiry.

NAB has recovered Rs277.909 billion since its inception and received 321,318 complaints that were all disposed of according to the law, revealed Naeem, adding that NAB has authorised 7,124 inquiries, 3,616 investigations and filed 2,610 references in respective accountability courts to proceed against the corrupt.

NAB Karachi is an important regional bureau of the organisation that has played a vital role in the overall performance of NAB, said Naeem. So far, NAB Karachi has received 3,267 complaints that were all disposed of according to law from January to July 31 this year, informed Naeem, adding that NAB Karachi completed 33 out of 109 complaint verifications, 38 out of 151 inquiries and 40 out of 143 investigations.

In his address, Naeem added that Chaudhry has also termed the performance of NAB Karachi exceptionally well, and the regional bureau scored 88% on the operational efficiency index conducted by NAB's inspection team under the quantified grading system during 2015.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 22^nd,  2016.