Collaborating with stakeholders: Joint efforts key to checking corruption

NAB to continue its aggressive anti-corruption drive

While the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) continues its anti-corruption campaign across the country, the bureau hopes that joint efforts of all stakeholders can collaborate to check corruption.

This was stated by NAB Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry while chairing a meeting to review the bureau’s progress at the NAB Headquarters, said a statement released on Saturday.

The anti-corruption watchdog, Chaudhry said, had adopted a zero-tolerance policy across the board against corruption.

Corruption affects the country just like cancer, the NAB chief said, adding that it was not only an obstacle to economic development but also causes poverty.

Highlighting the efforts of the body over the past three years, Chaudhry said they had recovered Rs45 billion. Moreover, the figures of complaints, inquiries and investigations had nearly doubled from 2015 to 2016.

Moreover, the NAB management had initiated a dialogue between anti-corruption authorities of South Asian Association of Regional Countries (SAARC) with a proposal to set up an SAARC-wide Anti-Corruption Forum.

At the forum’s first meeting in Islamabad last September, heads of SAARC anti-corruption authorities agreed to create an SAARC anti-corruption forum. NAB chief was made the forum’s inaugural head as well.

Moreover, Pakistan signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China to streamline and structure cooperation in the fields of anti-corruption. In the context of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Chaudhry said that this cooperation would further boost confidence in projects undertaken.

He added that signing of the agreement between Pakistan and China was especially significant in the backdrop of increasing economic and trade cooperation between Pakistan and China with a resolve by both governments to work in a fair, impartial and corruption-free environment in order to share their experiences to eradicate corruption.

The NAB chief added that another MoU was proposed to be signed with Malaysia later this year, details of which are being worked out.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 26^th, 2017.