Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Thursday directed the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to expedite investigations into mega corruptions cases, involving some big fish in various organisations.
The minister grilled the FIA high-ups for the delay in the investigations of various scandals during a meeting and directed the authority to complete probes into corruption cases, especially in the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP), Employees Old-Age Benefit Institution (EOBI), Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority, (PEMRA) recruitment scam, Hajj scam, Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB), Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) acquisition of 5 Boeing 777-300 ER aircraft in violation of PPRA rules and Pakistan State Oil (PSO) employees (import of sub-standard/off-space furnace oil and other POL products) on an immediate basis. The other cases included UK remission case, bullet proof case, Ebrahim Koko case and New Islamabad Airport scam.
He maintained that the FIA is no more a political submachine unlike the past as the ministry has fully empowered it to launch crackdown on corrupts but it is yet to make any significant progress. "I know most of the FIA officials are honest but being only honest is not enough and what I want is performance so that we can get rid of corruption and corrupt elements," he maintained.
Nisar said since he took over as interior minister he never interfered in the matters of FIA, especially postings and transfers, adding that this was done to give the officials a free hand to go after the corrupts. The minister regretted that 64 FIA officials who were thought to be outright corrupt were give important positions following a court order.
He said the court order did not mean that the corrupt would be given important positions despite their tainted record. The minister seemed extremely perturbed over the poor performance of the FIA. He plainly told the officials to either improve their performance or pack up. He called for complete overhauling of the system which supports the corrupt elements and directed the DG FIA to streamline his legal team.
"The FIA should be a symbol of fear for corrupt elements and justice for ordinary people," he said. He also reprimanded the DG for changing the inquiry officers of some cases without consulting him. A senior FIA official told the meeting that out of 64 officials, 16 were sent to their parent departments while the remaining few have been sidelined. Nisar said the ministry will challenge the Islamabad High Court (IHC) verdict which reinstated the 64 top corrupt officials.
Khalid Qureshi, additional director general (ADG) FIA told the meeting that the FIA was facing shortage of funds and manpower. "The annual cost for investigation is Rs 110 million which is a peanut...even then we've recovered Rs 6 billion and arrested 1,200 corrupt people during the last one year with the limited resources," he said. He said the total strength of the FIA is 3,000 and the authority has sent a summary to the interior ministry to hire some 800 more personnel. "We need funds for recruitment and training of new personnel as this is how we can improve our performance," he added. The interior minister assured the FIA to allocate adequate funds for it and recruitment of new staff. The meeting was also attended by secretary interior Shahid Khan, DG FIA Muhammad Akbar Khan Hoti and other senior officials.