Govt wants to revamp FIA: Nisar

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said on Saturday that an effective system of reward and punishment will be put in place to boost the morale of personnel belonging to law enforcement agencies (LEAs).

The interior minister said the government wanted to revamp the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) by removing all controversial officials and bringing in those with integrity and a clean track record.

He was chairing separate meetings to review the performance and functions of FIA and National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) here on Saturday.

On the occasion, the minister said that an effective system of reward and punishment would be put in place to boost the morale of LEAs personnel. He said the rules of FIA would also be revamped to give it more powers against corrupt officers.

He directed that a procedure should be adopted to ensure merit-based selection and induction procedure to ensure better functioning of FIA, adding that a committee would soon be constituted for this purpose. He said in matters of transfers and postings within the Ministry of Interior and its attached departments, no political interference would be tolerated.

FIA director general briefed the interior minister about the performance of FIA. He said that FIA has 52 police stations all over the country, but due to shortage of staff only 36 of these were currently functional.

Nisar also directed the officials concerned to establish anti-money laundering units in all parts of the country to check activities related to money laundering and “hundi”.

Later, NADRA Chairman Tariq Malik‚ briefed the minister about the working of his organisation. He informed the interior minister that so far NADRA had finished biometric registration of 96% adult men and 86% women in the country.

Nisar asked the NADRA chairman to take steps to prepare a system of electronic voting when the time for the next general elections.

Furthermore, Malik informed the minister that work had also been started on introducing e-tag system at the five selected entry and exit points of Islamabad.

Moreover, the interior minister was informed that NADRA had started the registration of domestic servants in Islamabad and so far 5,000 have been registered during a week-long door-to- door campaign.

Nisar was also briefed about the three-tier system recently launched by NADRA on two main entry and exit points of Swat. The minister appreciated the system and asked for a proposal to be made regarding replicating the same model in Quetta.

In addition, the interior minister was also apprised of the various international projects which NADRA was undertaking in Sudan‚ Kenya‚ Nigeria and Bangladesh‚ while bids were being tendered for a few projects in Libya‚ Kuwait‚ Iraq and Sri Lanka as well.