For every Rs 100 of the corruption money that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) returns to the national exchequer, it charges the nation Rs 158 for doing so, Pakistan Today has observed.
NAB Annual Report 2014 shows that the total amount that NAB has deposited in the national exchequer since 2000 is Rs 6.7 billion while the total amount that NAB has spent since 2000 is Rs 10.6 billion.
It should be noted that whenever NAB is criticised for making plea bargain and voluntary return deals with the corrupt in return for letting the corrupt go free, it points to the fact that NAB recovers money for the national exchequer.
“One of the unique features of NAO is recovery of looted money; plundered through corruption and corrupt practices, misappropriation, cheating public at large and willful loan default,” NAB Annual Report 2014 says, adding, “voluntary return and plea bargain are effective tools designed to assist in swift recovery of plundered money and ensure deposit into government treasury or return to concerned government departments/authorities and affectees.”
NAB spokesperson, in letter to a local newspaper last November, said “The NAO is the only law which provides for the recovery of looted money. Not even a single penny has ever been recovered under any other law dealing with corruption, fraud or loan default cases.”
However, NAB finances show that while the Bureau has been making wholesale deals with the corrupt and letting them go free, in most cases without any consequence at all, it has also recovered less money from those corrupt than it has spent doing so.
COMPENSATION SUMS:
It should be noted that Rs 6.7 billion is not all the money that NAB has recovered from the corrupt. But it should also be noted that Rs 10.6 billion is not all the money that NAB has spent either.
NAB has often claimed that it has recovered Rs 265 billion for the national exchequer. However, actual recovery numbers have been meagre.
NAB told the Supreme Court in July last year that it had recovered Rs 181 billion on account of bank default, restructuring or rescheduling of loans. However, it should be noted that banking courts which usually deal with these cases have been in operation in the country since before NAB, and they are still in operation now.
NAB has also recovered and repaid funds to victims of scams and frauds. While complete recovery numbers have not been mentioned, the report said that for the victims of Modaraba and Musharika scams, NAB had recovered Rs 1.691 billion, of the total Rs 21.675 billion. The report did not say how much money had been paid to the victims. The report also said that NAB had paid Rs 1 million and Rs 0.724 million to 42 victims in a cheque distribution ceremony in Peshawar.
THE CURIOUS CASE OF 15PC:
On the other hand, the number, 10.6 billion does not represent all the money that NAB has spent since its creation.
Muhammad Amjad Pervaiz, a lawyer who specialises in NAB cases, said that during the first 15 years of its operation, NAB had been unlawfully taking 15 per cent off the top from the amounts that it recovered.
“Last year, I went to the high court myself against this practice and they asked NAB to stop taking this money,” Pervaiz said, and added that NAB approached the Supreme Court to appeal the decision but the apex court also upheld the decision of the high court. When asked if NAB added this money to its budget, Pervaiz said that nobody knew where the money went. “There used to be a practice though that the Bureau would distribute the money among its officers as bonuses,” Pervaiz said.
NAB special prosecutor Muhammad Farhad Tirmazi, when asked if it was true that NAB had been taking 15 per cent money for itself until last year, said that it was not a fixed percentage, and that it had varied from 10 to 15 per cent.
“These were called incidental charges. Since, we were spending resources pursuing these cases, and since NAB also has to give salaries to its employees, we were taking a percentage to cover our expenses,” Tirmazi said, adding, “However, since the Supreme Court and all the high courts have barred us from taking this money, we’ve stopped taking this percentage.”
Tirmazi said that the incidental charges were not based on the NAO, but had been approved in the form of a standard operating procedure (SOP).
“NAB chairman was the sole authority to determine the percentage of the incidental charges, though he could delegate this power to the concerned DG,” he said.
When asked how much money NAB had taken under this head over 15 years, he said that 15 years was a long time and he could not hazard a guess.
To a question about why the recovery amounts cited by the NAB were so high but the actual amount deposited in the national exchequer was so low, he said that the reason could vary from case to case, “Maybe there were claimants in a case who were compensated directly. Then it would not show up in the amount that was submitted to the government.”
It should be noted that NAB’s accountability costs the national exchequer more than what is directly spent by the Bureau. The accountability courts, which are tasked with hearing the cases sent by NAB receive a separate budget. The accountability courts’ budget for 2015-16, for example, is Rs 211.6 million. In addition, since NAB does not have an enforcement machinery, it has been authorised to use police, Rangers and other agencies and departments.
Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Senator Saeed Ghani, when asked what he thought about the fact that the NAB had submitted less money to the national exchequer than it had taken from the government, said that the Bureau was only one of the national institutions which had done so.
“But, to be fair, NAB is not a revenue generating institution,” Ghani said and added that it was not the responsibility of NAB to provide funds for the government exchequer.
“It is, however, the responsibility of NAB to be an accountability organisation,” he said. He criticised NAB for engaging in plea bargain and voluntary return deals on a mass scale and letting people go without any consequence in a bid to show inflated numbers. He said that plea bargains and voluntary deals could not be justified at any cost.
NAB spokesman Nawazish Ali Asim was contacted repeatedly through phone calls and text messages but he chose not to respond.