Chairman National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Qamar Zaman Chaudhry said here on Monday that an Internal Accountability Management System (IAMS) has been introduced to check malpractices within the organisation. He was speaking at a seminar on "Accountability and Development: NAB's Perspective" organised by English-Speaking Union Karachi (ESUK) at a local hotel. NAB's director general Colonel Siraj-ul-Naeem (Retd) and ESUK President Aziz Memon also spoke on the occasion.
He said that the NAB's topmost priority is to look into complaints of corruption against its own officials and as such NAB's personnel are required to follow a strict code of conduct and zero tolerance against corruption and that has to visible. He said that complaints against NAB officers are dealt with promptly and judiciously under the IAMS.
"A corruption-free Pakistan would remain a dream unless the citizens of the country refuse to tolerate or accept corruption as a way of life," the NAB chief said, adding that corruption was not only a vice in its own right, but it also triggers a chain reaction, leading to injustice, mistrust and suspicion. Elaborating, he said: "It (corruption) generates a sense of insecurity which makes people go astray because they start losing faith in the ability and capability of the government and society to ensure their fundamental rights.
"This is a vicious circle of anxiety, insecurity, hopelessness, despondency and desperation. Thus the entire social fabric, the warp and weft of certitude and hope, is torn as under. "General public seeing corruption in almost all walks of life, facing difficulties in getting their basic rights and facilities simply start accepting corruption as the immutable status quo. In corrupt societies, everyone condemns bribery, but everyone gives and takes bribe, because not only nothing is getting done without that, but also because nothing is being done about it," he added.
He said corruption in government spending has a negative impact on development programmes and results in perpetual increase in cost of creation and maintenance of public assets. The particular deadliness of the disease lies in its self-perpetuation. Any corrupt act or practice sets in motion a vicious cycle in which one act of corruption becomes the source of further acts of corruption.
He said that NAB was established in these compelling circumstances to fight and eradicate corruption in a holistic and integrated manner. This is the backdrop against which NAB is striving to accomplish its mission ie to rid the nation from corruption and corrupt practices. He said that NAB is essentially a complaint-driven organisation. An exhaustive system of cognisance of cases has been formulated to standardise the selection of cases for processing. Priority is assigned keeping in view the nature of case, the amount of money involved, its social impact and the number of people affected.
The NAB chief said that with the doing away of FIA's economic crime wing in 2008, a huge resource deficit gap was created and the NAB was left with only 40 per cent manpower to manage its activities. However, an effort has been made to fill this gap with the induction of 260 officers who after training have augmented the bureau's resources in 2014.
During the year, he added, the concept of Combined Investigation Team (CIT) was introduced and this forecloses the possibility of any single NAB officer/official influencing the discharge of official business. "In the CIT, two investigation officers and a legal consultant work as a team for fair, transparent and unbiased, inquiry/investigations. To ensure objectivity and standardisation across-the-board, the SOPs were also examined and revisited through a participative exercise. These are now being implemented. SOPs are placed on NAB's website for convenience of all those who wish to know more about NAB's working," he added.
He said that the comparative figures of these two years with the previous two years have shown a marked increase in terms of receipt of complaints, conversion into CVs, up-gradation into inquiries, further processing in the shape of investigation and the number of references filed in the courts of law.
Moreover, the NAB had cleared backlog of complaints by 92 per cent, inquiry by 72pc and investigation by 69pc, he said, adding that NAB's overall recovery stood at Rs 265 billion till to-date with Rs 180bn recovered from bank defaulters. He said that it was out of these recoveries that the affectees of Double Shah and those relating to co-operative and housing societies scams had been paid their long outstanding dues, while the NAB's total expenditures stood at Rs 12.5bn.
Claiming that Corruption Perception Index (CPI) was showing steady improvement, he said that NAB was committed to perform its duty without any social and political pressure. He emphasized that amount determined by NAB is non-negotiable and is required to be paid by the accused in three equal instalments. Secondly, all money recovered from accused is deposited in the Federal Consolidated Fund; NAB cannot retain a penny out of it.
"If the accused makes the offer to return ill-gotten money at investigation stage, then it is called Plea Bargain (PB) but it is possible only after approval by the Accountability Court," the NAB chief said, adding that PB also has other implications as it is a deemed as conviction and the accused is debarred from holding a public office and getting any loan facility for 10 years while in the case of a government servant, the concerned official lose the job. He said that an effective accountability mechanism is quintessential for economic growth, investment and stability of social order. The intervention by NAB has acted as a `catalyst', as transparency is a prerequisite for promoting investment and economic growth.
The NAB since its inception had adopted the enforcement-based approach in its fight against corruption, he said, adding that corruption is too complex a phenomenon to be controlled with the enforcement strategy alone. He said Character-Building Societies (CBS) are being set up in educational institutions across the country to build an effective edifice against corruption. In this regard, he pointed out that an memorandum of understanding has been signed with Higher Education Commission in October 2014. Moreover, Planning Commission of Pakistan has included a chapter devoted to issues of corruption in its 11th Five-Year Plan and NAB intends to work closely with PC to achieve the goals set in the plan for the eradication of corruption, he added.