Justice (Retd) Javed Iqbal. PHOTO: PPI / FILE
Chairing a meeting via video link at the NAB Headquarters while maintaining social distancing and ensuring all precautionary measures, Iqbal said, “NAB was absolutely committed to root out corruption with an iron hand in an atmosphere of renewed energy and dynamism, where fight against corruption is being taken as national duty.”
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He said that the Father of the Nation Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah in his address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan had termed corruption and bribery as one of the biggest curses.
"That really is a poison. We must put it down with an iron hand," the NAB chairman said, adding that the bureau was established to eradicate corruption in a holistic and integrated manner.
“NAB is striving to accomplish its mission to rid the nation of corruption and corrupt practices. Its operational methodology has three stages for proceeding of cases – complaint verification, inquiry and investigation,” said Iqbal, urging NAB officers/officials to follow the Anti-Corruption Strategy by adopting "accountability for all" policy for eradication of corruption.
He said that national and international-reputed organisations had acknowledged the hard work, commitment, transparency and merit being put in by NAB officers. “NAB officers should double their efforts in arresting corrupt elements and recovering the public’s hard earned money from them.”
He said that to close the possibility of any single NAB officer/official influencing official business, the new concept of a "Combined Investigation Team" (CIT) was introduced where two investigation officers and a legal consultant, financial expert under the supervision of additional director/case and concerned director were working as a team for a fair, transparent and unbiased, inquiry/investigation.
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He was of the view that the quality of inquiry and investigation of NAB would improve due to the establishment of NAB's first Forensic Science Lab (FSL) in Islamabad which “has all facilities of Digital Forensics, Questioned Documents and Fingerprint Analysis which will help produce quality and solid evidence in conduct of inquiries and investigations”. He said that NAB has devised Monitoring and Evaluation System (MES) to monitor its performance and all regional bureaus in qualitative and quantitative terms which has proved very helpful in evaluation of overall performance.
He said that NAB was the only organisation with whom China has signed a memorandum of understanding to oversee projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CEPC).
He said that NAB Ordinance 1999's preamble lays emphasis on nabbing corrupt and recovering the looted money. “NAB has recovered Rs328 billion since its inception and its overall conviction ratio is about 70% in accountability courts.”
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Honorable chairman You keep saying these good things but you should convict these crooks with the harshest possible punishment.