Chairman urges investigation officers to be fair in their conduct and deliver efficiently.
This was stated by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry while addressing members of the business community in Rawalpindi on Thursday.
“NAB is committed to make Pakistan a corruption free country,” he said while speaking at Rawalpindi Chamber and Commerce and Industry (RCCI).
Chaudhry said that NAB was established to eradicate corruption in a holistic and integrated manner, however, he pointed out that the bureau was a complaint driven organisation.
Responding to the recent criticism over the plea bargain option in the accountability law, he said the option helps victims get back their money from people looting the public at large. The same is case of the state institutions, he said.
In this regard, Chaudhry pointed towards how NAB had managed to recover embezzled sums in the Balochistan mega-scam through this facility and that the Balochistan chief minister and chief secretary had thanked NAB for recovering the money.
He recalled that the NAB had recovered Rs3.5 billion from the ill-famed ‘Double Shah’ and returned the money to as many as 28,899 victims who were lured into the Ponzi scheme.
However, in case of Mufti Ahsan, who had looted almost Rs8 billion from thousands of people in the ‘Modarba Companies Scandal’, the victims were left high and dry because the suspect was sent directly to jail without the option of plea bargain. Hence most of the affected people in the scam have yet to get their money back.
Corruption hinders commerce
RCCI President Raja Amer Iqbal said that corruption hinders investment and growth.
“Corruption makes production, imports and exports costly resulting in a trade deficit,” the chamber chief said.
If it was possible to minimise corruption, Pakistani goods could become more competitive than their foreign counterparts and fetch better price in global markets resulting in less trade deficit, he explained.
Iqbal appreciated the efforts of NAB in eradicating corruption.
“The trust of international community in our economy is returning for which credit goes to the government as well as efforts of the anti-corruption initiatives of NAB,” the RCCI president said.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 13th, 2017.
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