ISLAMABAD: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) during period of more than three years of the present management has filed 150 corruption references in the respective Accountability Courts and received Rs 50 billion from the corrupt people and deposited in the national exchequer.

This was record achievement shown by the present management of NAB, said this by Qamar Zaman Chaudhry, Chairman NAB in his statement issued, here on Sunday.

He said that NAB’s operational methodology comprises complaint verification, inquiry and investigation.

He said that its officers/Officials are working with the realization that eradication of corruption is their national duty.

The chairman said corruption is just like cancer and the NAB adopted a comprehensive National Anti-Corruption Strategy to meet the challenges to root out it from the country.

The NAB has rationalized its workload and timelines have been prescribed for efficient, effective and expeditious disposal of cases putting a maximum limit of 10 months - from complaint verification-to-inquiry-to-investigation and finally to a reference in the Accountability Court.

He said that NAB has also introduced a new system of Combine Investigation Team (CIT) in order to benefit from the experience and collective wisdom of senior supervisory officers.

NAB’s officers/officials need to follow strict code of Conduct/SOPs and merit according to law. Starting from the year 2014 which can be called basically a year of reinvigoration of NAB, we have moved with new zeal and effort.

During the tenure of the present management of the NAB, the overall conviction ratio in respective accountability courts is about 76 percent which is excellent as compared to any other anti-corruption agency in Pakistan.

He said that NAB has established its first Forensic Science Lab (FSL) in NAB Rawalpindi which has facilities of Digital Forensics, Questioned Documents and Fingerprint Analysis.

As per the latest report of Transparency International (TI), Pakistan’s ranking in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) has improved plus 9 points, adding that Pakistan was considering role model in South Asian countries in its efforts against corruption.

This is a great achievement for Pakistan due to NAB efforts. Besides Transparency International, the Independent watch dogs like World Economic Forum had also appreciated Pakistan’s efforts to curb corruption in Pakistan.

The NAB in collaboration with HEC signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 2014 and in a very short span of time established over 45, 000 Character Building Societies (CBSs) in universities/colleges and schools to create awareness against corruption.

He said that it has undertaken a number of strategic initiatives aimed at rejuvenation of the organization. The Organ gram was revisited to transform the NAB into an efficient and responsive organization.

The NAB has devised a Quantifiable Grading System (QGS) to monitor the performance of all regions of the NAB on annual basis. From 2015, under Quantifiable Grading System (QGS) NAB is monitoring the performance of all regional NAB’s and NAB headquarter on annual basis in order to know the strengths and weaknesses of NAB regional Bureaus.

NAB has also introduced Mid Term Inspection of NAB HQ and all regional bureaus on the basis of feedback received from Annual Inspection.

The NAB has introduced Internal Accountability Mechanism (IAM). Till to date out of 84 officers/officials, 23 officers have been imposed major penalty which is removal from service and 34 have been received minor penalties.

This is a record that any organization has initiated accountability process within its organization at its own. —APP