VIENNA: NAB has established its first forensic science lab in Islamabad with facilities of digital forensics, questioned documents and fingerprint analysis.
Timelines have been prescribed by NAB 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. NAB has also introduced a new System of Combine Investigation Team (CIT) 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. This is not only lending quality to the work but also ensuring that no single individual can influence the official proceedings of NAB. This was stated by Qamar Zaman Chaudhry, Chairman NAB while exchanging views during International Conference on Anti-Corruption being held in Vienna, Austria. He said that NAB under the present leadership has made a proactive and result-oriented national anti-corruption strategy of awareness, prevention and enforcement in order to revamp NAB and to root out corruption from the country by making all the public and private institutions to serve the nation with best of its abilities on merit. NAB during the period of present management almost more than three years have received Rs 50 billion from corrupt and deposited in national exchequer which is a record achievement. The figures of complaints, inquiries and investigations are almost double as compared to the same period of 2014 to 2017. The comparative figures for the latest two-and-half-years are indicative of the hard work being put in by all ranks of NAB staff in an atmosphere of renewed energy and dynamism, where fight against corruption is being taken as a national duty. Increase in the number of complaints also reflects enhanced public trusted in the NAB. He said that during the tenure of present management of NAB, the overall conviction ratio in respective accountability courts is about 76 percent which is excellent as compared to other anti-corruption agencies. He said that as per the latest report of Transparency International (TI) of 2016, Pakistan’s ranking in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) has improved plus 9 points, adding that Pakistan was considering role model in South Asian countries in its efforts against corruption. This is a great achievement for Pakistan due to NAB efforts. The Corruption Perception Index (CPI) in the Pakistan as per Transparency International (TI), report was declining after 2013 due to steps taken by the present management of NAB against the corrupt. Besides Transparency International, the Independent National and International watchdogs like PLIDAT and World Economic Forum had also appreciated Pakistan’s efforts to curb corruption. He said that NAB has developed an effective monitoring and evaluation system (MES) 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 attended the meeting with time and date and setting up of an effective monitoring and evaluation system and ability to analyze data in qualitative and quantitative form having warnings and alarms system for violators.
Published in Daily Times, August 24th 2017.
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