Despite ‘pressure’, NAB chief refuses to resign
At a news conference in Islamabad, Bokhari claimed that he was under pressure to step down. He, however, did not say who was pressuring him. When pressed, Bokhari said that they could be “criminals” he acted against. However, he said it was not the General Headquarters or Presidency.
“When you act against criminals, they try to throw dirt at you,” said Bokhari. “I will not resign. Remove me if you want,” he added.
Bokhari said that PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif had also favoured his appointment as head of the country’s premier anti-graft body. Like judges of the Supreme Court, NAB chairman can only be removed from his office by the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC).
Bokhari said he was appointed after two heads of the bureau had quit one after the other and it needed a new chief. Bokhari added that he never let pressure get to his subordinates and affect their work or the bureau’s performance.
To a question, Bokhari said if requested, NAB would provide assistance to the one-man commission, headed by former Intelligence Bureau chief Dr Shoaib Suddle, which is investigating the Arsalan Iftikhar case.
Since the case was between two individuals, it did not fall into NAB’s ambit and the apex court was informed accordingly, he added. “So, if the court transferred investigations to the Suddle commission it was not because of a problem on NAB’s part.”
He also said that NAB was not pursuing corruption cases against any media outlet.
Asked where the hub of corruption lies in the country, the NAB chairman said corruption materialised when politicians, bureaucracy and the private sector united and this nexus needed to be smashed.
Prevention regime
Bokhari said NAB has moved its strategy from enforcement to prevention regime. Under this initiative, the bureau has put 173 federal and provincial level projects to scrutiny since March 2012. The total financial impact of the projects was Rs1,475 billion.
To this effect, the NAB chief said 11 prevention committees were formed at the federal and 13 at the provincial level. Furthermore, regulators are to scrutinise structural and resource mechanisms of the organisations.
The nature of NAB diligence covered pre-procurement, ongoing projects and post-procurement misdemeanours projects. NAB work in prevention has been varying from corrective advice, procedural review and annulment, Bokhari said.
He added that substantial corrections, revisions of draft contracts and compliance to rules have been exercised by various departments which included National Highway Authority, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, Universal Service Fund Company, Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited and Oil and Gas Development Company Limited.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 18th, 2012.
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He should have the guts to identify the forces who are allegedly pressurizing him. Otherwise he should keep quiet
Sir good job done,clean this society from rogues,rascals and looters hiding in all departments including armed force,Seniors by virtue of the powers expanding their perks every movement and chance the get,this loot attitude gives trigger affect to corruption in lower tires.Generals,Judges,Journalists Ministers and Bureaucrats are under no checks.They decide themselves and start looting.Its the only country of the world where elders are cheaters. ,
Not clear.. Still confusion..!The man has acted like someone who cannot be trusted. You only go to the media when you know you've done wrong and you will likely be punished for it very soon by the same quarters you did favours for.
Time to face the music.
I feel proud of your principalled stand. You are in the wave that will change Pakistan into a lawful and orderly society. I feel that existing laws need many changes to speed up the change; that too is happening, but the work involved is very large and will take time. In addition there is immense resistence by the beneficiaries of the present system. You have taken the right action.
Only a corrupt person will support corruption caharges against elected high ups. It was a wise choice of Mr Zardari. In Pakistan you have to drag out a person from office to remove him. No boby has resigned on morality basis.
If the NAB chairman has corruption allegations how can corruption can be controlled ?
"did not chose not to identify" means he chose to identify. Please correct the double negative, and raise your editing standards.
yeh cheez, keep it up the PPP way !
What is he saying. If President and other who matter are not asking him to quit then where is the pressure.
You were appointed being close to Zardari who used you well by appt and 100 million plot which no General get. NS knew that you donot have good relations with Mush so did not object Now open over Rs 100 Arab cases against Gilanis and Ashraf