NAB Lahore recovered Rs3.27b in two years

LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Lahore chapter recovered an amount of Rs1.373 billion in 2015 and Rs1.897 billion in 2016, bringing the total recoveries to Rs3.27 billion in the two years.

Commenting on the performance of NAB on Thursday, the bureau’s Lahore Director-General Maj (retd) Syed Burhan Ali said that after assuming charge as the NAB chairman, Qamar Zaman Chaudhry had chalked out a comprehensive national anti-corruption strategy (NACS), under which NAB adopted ‘zero-tolerance policy’ and a proactive approach to curb corruption and corrupt practices from society.

“NAB has, so far, recovered Rs285 billion from corrupt elements and deposited it to the national exchequer,” he added. “In pursuance of the chairman’s vision, NAB Lahore is striving hard to eliminate corruption.”

Burhan pointed out that since NAB’s inception, the Lahore chapter has unearthed many mega corruption cases and arrested about 1,115 people, including bureaucrats, businessmen, real estate agents as well as police and government officials.

He added that 281 such criminals were arrested in the past two years – 156 in 2015 and 125 in 2016 – which he claimed was
a record number of arrests made by the
NAB Lahore.

Burhan said NAB’s Lahore chapter received 12,835 complaints in 2015 out of which 12,308 were disposed off. About 4,866 complaints were received in 2015 and 4,874 were disposed off in the same year. Another 7,969 complaints were received in 2016 out of which 7,433 complaints were disposed off.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 13^th, 2017.