NAB received 33,245 complaints last year

Bureau’s chief says prosecution rate of the body improved

The top anti-corruption watchdog received as many as 33,245 complaints last year while Rs11.658 billion in looted money was recovered.

This was stated by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry during a meeting to appreciate all officers who had worked to prepare and publish NAB’s Year Book at the bureau’s Headquarters, a statement issued by the body.

The NAB chairman said that owing to various measures and initiatives taken by the bureau’s management in 2014, considered to be the year of reinvigoration for NAB, the reforms and its implementation brought positive results in 2015 and onwards.

Hence in 2016, he said that NAB received 33,245 complaints. Of these, the anti-corruption watchdog authorised 914 inquiries and 389 investigations in the past year.

The accountability courts have convicted people in 40 references under section 10 of National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) 1999. Further 896 suspects admitted their guilt and opted to return the looted money of people worth Rs11.658 billion on account of a plea bargain (PB) and voluntary return (VR).

Chaudhry said that NAB had recovered Rs4.693 billion and Rs5.676 billion through VR and PB respectively in 2016. Moreover, NAB also recovered Rs0.628 billion in fines imposed by the accountability courts.

Further, the prosecution of NAB references in the respective courts also improved over the past three years with a success rate of 72.72% in 2016.

The NAB chief said that the establishment of Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Islamabad was also a milestone last year. The lab had generated 19 reports in digital forensics, and 44 reports in questioned documents.

Chaudhry said that with the shortage of human resources a concern for the accountability body in recent years, he said that they had inducted around 100 officers who joined the field in February 2016. Thereafter another batch of 97 officers was recruited who are currently being trained at the Police College Sihala.

Further, several capacity building courses, refresher courses and training were also arranged for the officers to enhance their professional capabilities.

NAB’s initiative to quantify the performance of the body’s regional bureaus was implemented in 2016 as well under the Partly Qualified Grading System (PQGS). For 2015, NAB Karachi was adjudged to be the best Region.

NAB is also operating a fair and effective Internal Accountability Management (IAM) System for its officers and staff.  He said that a web-based Monitoring and Evaluation System (MES) had also been implemented for effective monitoring and internal accountability.

The body, he said, continued to collaborate through international conferences and bilateral ties.  In this context, Pakistan signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with China in November 2016 with the purpose of streamlining and structure cooperation in the fields of anti-corruption.

He said that NAB also extended a proposal to set up South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation-Anti-Corruption Forum (SAARC-ACF).

Published in The Express Tribune, May 18^th, 2017.