Corruption major hurdle in country’s progress: NAB chief

ISLAMABAD: National Accountability Bureau Chairman Justice (R) Javed Iqbal said that NAB is making its sincere efforts to bring back home the corrupt elements who fled abroad after looting billions of rupees from Pakistan.Addressing the officers of Operation and Prosecution divisions of the Bureau here on Thursday, the NAB chairman said corruption is a major hurdle in the progress and prosperity of the country, and it devised an effective anti-corruption strategy of “Accountability for All” and faith of NAB--corruption free Pakistan. He said NAB considers ridding the country of corruption, and the menace of corruption with iron hands as its national responsibility.Justice (R) Javed directed the officers to perform their duties in a transparent way in accordance with law. “The NAB is taking action against corrupt elements without caring about any duress and performing their national duties transparently and in accordance with law,” he said.He said the national duty of NAB is to ensure corruption free Pakistan and has become a prestigious institution owing to the hard work put in by all officers of NAB. “Due to credibility of NAB, the bureau has received 54,344 complaints in just last 13 months,” he said adding that after thorough scrutiny of all complaints, the Bureau had approved conducting complaint verifications of 2,125 conducting inquiries of 1,059 complaints, and Bureau had also accorded approval to conducting investigations of 302 complaints and 590 references which were filed in various accountability courts, which are at different stages of hearing right now.He said that NAB has apprehended 561 culprits, besides depositing Rs3,919.011 million in national kitty after recovering from their possession. “The NAB’s ratio of conviction remained 70.8 per cent during 2018, which is far better than all other institutes working in Pakistan to eradicate corruption,” he said.He said that currently 1,219 corruption references involving Rs900 billion are under trial in various respected accountability courts of the country. The NAB chairman directed all investigation officers and prosecutors to pursue all cases in respected courts with full preparation in the light of solid evidence in accordance with law so that the corrupt elements should be brought to justice and looted money could be recovered and deposited in the national exchequer. He said that NAB has recovered over Rs01 billion from different housing societies and returned to the affected people. The chairman said that NAB is striving to recover the hard earned looted money of poor people from illegal housing societies.

from The News International - National https://ift.tt/2H6Fhsk