NAB adopting zero tolerance policy to curb corruption

Anti-corruption watchdog’s chief says the number of complaints has doubled from 2015

ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) intends to curb corruption with iron hands by adopting a zero-tolerance policy across the board to ensure a corruption-free Pakistan.

This was stated by NAB Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry while chairing a monthly coordination meeting at NAB Headquarters to review the latest progress on the decisions taken in the previous coordination meeting, a statement released on Tuesday said.

Considering corruption to be the biggest hurdle for a prosperous Pakistan, Chaudhry said that NAB was established as an apex anti-corruption organisation with a mandate to eradicate corruption and to recover hard-earned looted money of innocent people from the corrupt.

He said that due to the anti-corruption watchdog’s proactive National Anti-Corruption Strategy to eradicate corruption, it had received around 343,356complaints from individuals and private and public organisations. During this period, NAB authorised 11,581 complaint verifications, 7,587 inquiries, 3,846 investigations, filed 2,808corruption references in the respective accountability courts and has an overall conviction ratio of around 76 per cent.

NAB’s prime focus, he said, is on cases of cheating public at large by fraudulent financial companies, bank frauds, willful bank loan defaults, misuse of authority and embezzlement of state funds by government servants.

Since NAB’s inception, Chaudhry said, one of the major achievements of the bureau has been the recovery of around Rs287 billion of ill-gotten money which was deposited in the national exchequer.

He said the figures for complaints, inquiries and investigations have nearly doubled in 2017 when compared to the same period from 2015.

The comparative figures for the last three years, he said, were indicative of the hard work being put in by all ranks of NAB staff in an atmosphere of renewed energy and dynamism.

The increase in the number of complaints also reflected enhanced public trust in NAB.

In this regards, a report by PILDAT stated that over 42 per cent of the people trusted NAB when compared to 30 per cent who trusted the police and 29per cent who trusted government officials. A recent report from Transparency International also rated Pakistan in Corruption Perception Index (CPI) from 126 to 116.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 14^th, 2017.