Training investigators top priority: NAB chief

NAB had outsourced the selection process to NTS

ISLAMABAD: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry has said that training investigation officers is the top priority of the top anti-graft watchdog.

He said this while addressing the graduation ceremony of NAB investigation officers who were trained at the Police Training College in Sihala, read a statement issued on Monday.

Congratulating the graduating officers, the chairman said that they should be proud of their selection since it had been done on merit. “It was a very competitive process,” he revealed.

To ensure transparency and merit, the selection process had been outsourced to the National Testing Service (NTS), who tested officers on both academic and psychological competencies. A total of 94,165 candidates had applied for the test. Of these, 80,377 candidates were shortlisted to be inducted on 97 vacant posts.

“It was an arduous task to select the best-out-of-the-best candidates. I am very happy that not even a single discrepancy occurred in the entire process,” he claimed.

He said that transparency has been the hallmark of NAB and it will continue to consolidate that in the future as well.

“I firmly believe that only those officers, who were selected on merit, will be able to do justice to their jobs,” he said.

“The NAB has been assigned the most important national duty of rooting out corruption, in all its forms and manifestations, from the country, Chaudhry said, adding that the menace of corruption was also linked to a multitude of vices.

“It leads to injustice, mistrust and suspicion,” he said.

He said that embezzling public funds negatively impacts developmental programmes, and results in the perpetual increase in costs of creating and maintaining public assets.

“Our motherland is confronted with an albatross of corruption which is having a toll on our precious national resources,” he said.

He said that NAB is essentially a complaint-driven organisation and an exhaustive system for the selection of cases has been formulated.

The preference, to any case, is given on the basis of its nature, the amount of money involved and the social impact it carries.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 12^th, 2017.