Corruption is the mother of all evils. To tackle corruption related matters, National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was established in 1999 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 and to recover looted money. NAB operates under the National Accountability Ordinance-1999. NAB has eight regional bureaus and its Headquarters is in Islamabad.
NAB has prosecuted corrupts and has recovered Rs 266.544 billion since its inception. The numbers of applications received in 2014 were 40077 which is double the number of complaints 19900 received in 2013. The increase in applications to NAB is reflective of people's confidence in our 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 Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry, has been rejuvenated reinvigorated. In terms of inquiries, NAB has completed 585 inquiries during the year 2014 as compared to 243 during 2013. Similarly as many as 188 investigations were concluded in 2014 as compare to 129 in 2013. As regards, the references filed in respective Accountability Courts, in 2014, NAB has filed 208 references as compared to 135 during 2013.
It is in this context that PILDAT in its 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 working. The rate of success of NAB's prosecution work in all courts is approximately 75 percent. The recent reports of Transparency International also rated Pakistan in Corruption Perception Index (CPI) from 126 to 117 which is a great achievement for Pakistan due to NAB's efforts.
To create Awareness against the ill effects of corruption among the youth of Pakistan, National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in collaboration with Higher Education Commission (HEC) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). Over 10, 000 Character Building Societies (CBSs) have been established by NAB in universities and colleges to create awareness against corruption as youths are considered a vanguard in this fight.
NAB has filed 12 references in the Rs 22 billion Modarba Scam and recovered Rs 2.50 billion from Modaraba Scam besides properties and vehicles. NAB has so arrested 34 accused persons in this case. NAB has also filed 10 references in Rental Power Project cases in the respective Accountability Courts.
On the directions of Chairman NAB, a standard operating procedure 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) for investigation officers (IOs) in vogue were reviewed and revised after a gap of 10 years in order to benefit from the experience and collective wisdom of senior supervisory officers, a system of CIT comprising of Director, Additional Director, Investigation Officer and a Senior Legal Counsel has been put in place.
NAB has devised a comprehensive Quantified Grading System in NAB in order to review annual performance of NAB's Regional Bureaus and further improve the performance of Officers/Officials of NAB. Under this grading system, NAB Regional Bureau's performance (Operational Efficiency Index (OEI) are being evaluated at a given criteria 80 percent will be considered "Outstanding/Excellent", marks between 60 percent to 79 percent will be considered as "Very Good", marks between 40 percent to 49 percent will be considered as "Good", while marks less than 40 percent will be considered as "Below Average". The annual performance of all NAB's Regional Bureaus under Quantified Grading System has been evaluated during January and February 2016.
NAB under the leadership of Qamar Zaman Chaudhry, Chairman NAB has established Integrity Management Cell in NAB Headquarters. NAB has also established Internal Accountability Mechanism in order to encourage the culture of adherence to Rules and SOPs and creating deterrence against indulging in violations and to weed out such elements that for reasons of inefficiency, misconduct, malpractice and violation of laid down SOPs/Rules bring a bad name to the organisation-PR
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