Complaints doubled from last year, says NAB chief

Bureau’s officers told to demonstrate absolute fairness, transparency in discharging duties

The number of complaints received by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had doubled for the same period from 2016 to 2017.

This was stated by NAB Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry on Thursday while chairing a meeting to review the progress of the bureau at NAB headquarters.

The bureau has directed its officers adopt and demonstrate absolute fairness and transparency in discharging their duties since the organisation believes in “zero corruption, 100 per cent development”.

In a statement issued by the authority on Thursday, Chaudhry said that the bureau is a complaint-driven organisation and that its operational methodology comprises of three stages for cases including complaint verification, inquiry and investigation.

He said that NAB had received numerous complaints in the Rs22 Billion Modarba Case. Apart from the case, the number of complaints, inquiries and investigations initiated by the body had nearly doubled from 2016 to 2017.

Chaudhry said that it was encouraging for the bureau that the Planning Commission had, for the first time, made Anti-Corruption a part of its development agenda in the context of governance. Moreover, he pointed out how the PC had devoted an entire chapter to issues of corruption in its eleventh five-year plan.

The NAB chief directed officers of the body to double their efforts for eradicating corruption by adopting a zero-tolerance policy across the board.

Pointing to a recent PILDAT report, Chaudhry said that it showed that 42 per cent of people trusted NAB against 30 per cent for police and 29 per cent for government officials.

The recent report of Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) showed that Pakistan’s ranking had improved by nine points.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 7^th, 2017.