Corruption is the mother of all evils, as it undermines development and rule of law. Corruption not only causes delays in the early completion of development projects but also causes huge losses to national exchequer. Considering these facts, National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was established in 1999 under NAO as Pakistan's apex anti-corruption organisation which is assigned with the responsibility of elimination of corruption through a holistic approach of awareness, prevention and enforcement.
NAB under the leadership of Qamar Zaman Chaudhry, Chairman NAB, has chalked out a comprehensive National Anti-Corruption Strategy (NACS) for eradication of corruption and corrupt practices throughout the country. NAB has prosecuted corrupts and has recovered over Rs 4.5 billion of looted public money in the last one year, bringing the total recovery to date to Rs 264.4 billion.
The allocation to NAB for its working since creation is Rs 11.8 billion, which is only 4.4 percent of recoveries made by NAB. The numbers of applications received in 2014 were 40,077 which is double the number of 19,900 received in 2013. The increase in applications is reflective of people's confidence in NAB's work. The litmus test of the efficiency and effectiveness of NAB's efforts lies in the number of cases processed.
NAB, on the directions of its Chairman, has been rejuvenated and reinvigorated. In terms of inquiries, NAB completed 585 inquiries during 2014 as compared to 243 during 2013. Similarly as many as 188 investigations were concluded in 2014 as compared to 129 in 2013. As regards, the references filed in respective Accountability Courts, in 2014, NAB filed 208 references as compared to 135 during 2013. It is in this context that PILDAT in its latest report has rated NAB's performance at 42 percent based on public survey.
This compares quite favourably to 29 percent public confidence in police and 26 percent in government officers. The rate of success of NAB's prosecution work in all courts is approximately 70 percent. The recent reports of Transparency International also rated Pakistan in Corruption Perception Index (CPI) from 175 to 126 which is a great achievement for the country due to NAB's efforts.
NAB has filed six references in the Rs 22 billion Modarba scam and recovered Rs one billion and 73 crore, besides properties and vehicles. NAB has so arrested 32 accused in this case.
NAB has also filed eight references in Rental Power Project cases in the respective Accountability Courts.
On the directions of the NAB Chairman, a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) has already been devised to rationalise the 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. In order to ensure uniformity and standardisation, the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in vogue were revised after a gap of 10 years to make these responsive to the needs of changed economic, social and technological realities along with goals and targets for smooth conduct of operational activities in accordance with law and to bring further improvements in the performance of NAB Regional Bureaus.
The Regional Bureaus under Party Quantified Grading System are being evaluated at a given criteria. NAB has decided to give priority to corruption cases ie normal cases from Rs 100-200 million, complex cases from Rs 500-1000 million and mega cases of Rs 1000 million and above.
NAB has developed Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) System catering to the needs of all concerned having salient features of maintenance of data at each stage including complaint entry, complaint verification, inquiry, investigation, prosecution stage and record preservation of regional board meetings and executive board meetings including case brief, decisions made and list of participants with time and date and setting up of an effective Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) System and ability to analyse data in qualitative and quantitative forms having warnings and alarms system for violators.
NAB has devised Internal Accountability Mechanism (IAM) with a view to weeding out elements for reasons of inefficiency, misconduct, malpractice and violation of laid down SOPs/rules.
In line with Chairman NAB's firm resolve and commitment to eradicate corruption and corrupt practices from the country, NAB and SECP have decided to create a Joint Task Force comprising senior level officers of NAB and SECP in order to work expeditiously on the corruption cases referred by SECP to NAB.
NAB has proposed the Ministry of Law and Justice that Whistle Blowing Protection Act is imperative for the country under the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC). The Prime Minister has approved Whistle Blower Protection Bill which has been sent to Cabinet Division for placing before the Federal Cabinet for further necessary action.-PR
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