NAB recovered Rs363b in last two years

The anti-graft watchdog received 75,268 complaints, out of which 66,838 complaints were disposed of

ISLAMABAD:

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) recovered an unprecedented Rs363 billion from corrupt elements in the last two years and deposited the amount in the national exchequer.

“NAB is an effective institution, which is taking measures for the eradication of corruption from the country,” the anti-graft buster chief Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal said in a statement issued on Wednesday.

“It [NAB] has concentrated [efforts] on pursuing cases of corruption, misappropriation in government funds, abuse of authority, money laundering and cheating people at large,” he added.

According to the statement, the NAB chairman held a high-level meeting at the NAB Headquarters and expressed satisfaction on the overall performance of the anti-corruption watchdog, saying it had put energies together to take cases to their logical conclusion as per law.

He maintained that the encouraging results of the policy of awareness, prevention and enforcement had started pouring in.

The meeting was told that the NAB had recovered directly or indirectly an unprecedented Rs363 billion from the corrupt elements in the last two years and deposited the amount in the treasury.

The NAB chairman noted that the anti-graft watchdog had received 75,268 complaints, out of which 66,838 complaints were disposed of.

In the last two years, action was taken on 2,417 grievances out of which 2,036 complaints were wrapped up. During the same period, NAB approved 1,240 inquiries while proceedings were completed against 1,220 inquiries.

NAB also accorded approval to 432 investigations during the last two years and concluded 415 inquiries.

It had filed 332 corruption references out of which 270 investigations were completed.

NAB’s priority is to eradicate corruption and recover the looted money, the anti-graft watchdog’s chief reiterated.

He stressed that the national graft buster wanted to ensure a corruption-free country and highlighted that reputed international institutions like the World Economic Forum and Transparency International Pakistan had lauded the NAB’s awareness and prevention policy.

The NAB chief directed the officials concerned to conclude the complaint verifications, inquiries and investigations as per law, in order to recover the looted wealth.

The statement said that the anti-corruption establishment had adopted monitoring and evaluation system for improving its performance and was utilising collective wisdom of its officers for carrying out complaint verifications, inquiries, and investigations and concluding the cases after collecting concrete evidence against the culprits.

It established executive and regional boards for transparent and independent decision-making process in the light of legal aspects of the case, the statement added.