National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry on Saturday dispelled the “much talked about” allegation that the corruption watchdog was accommodating the accused with “plea bargains”, saying that accused persons willingly to return the looted amount were within their rights to do so in the eyes of law.
Explaining the process and differentiating between cases of Accountability Courts and NAB, Chaudhry said that it was these “bargains” that had ensured recovery of billions of rupees – and that this very recovery was NAB’s aim.
The NAB chief was addressing a gathering of educators, students and members of the English Speaking Union (ESU) at a speaker session arranged by ESU at the Avari. The event was composed of a presentation on NAB’s activities by the chairman, followed by a Question Answer session. The NAB chairman was introduced by the ESU president, who was also a member of the dais featuring the ESU Vice President Syed Nayer Ali and Secretary General Khalid Sharif.
The NAB chairman admitted to a series of “ups and downs” and “trying times” in NAB’s journey since conception but remained optimistic. He highlighted various activities of NAB to improve performance, including Combined Investigation Teams (CIT) to clear possibility of biases in investigating officers, four-month exercises to ensure across-the-board objectivity and attempts to educate the public, especially the youth. He touched upon “character building societies” being established in educational institutions across the nation and entreated parents to aid efforts by teaching their children how abhorrent corruption is.
Addressing concerns of “lopsided efforts”, “loopholes” within NAB law, and “public’s confidence in NAB” in the question answer session, he ensured that NAB – a “complaint driven organisation” – had an effective method of prioritising and resolving cases brought to its notice.
“The measure of success is the number of cases processed,” he said, adding that of the 1,133 notably “slow” cases which NAB set to be cleared by June 2015, 70 per cent of the pending cases and 80 per cent of the investigation had been cleared by the deadline.
“Around Rs 18.8 billion looted money had been recovered in 2014 via ‘plea bargains’ alone, which made total recovered amount Rs 264.4 billion to date,” he said, adding that applications to NAB had more than doubled in 2014 (40,077) as compared to the previous year’s report (19,900).
He also addressed query about public survey findings (by PILDAT) regarding the people’s confidence in NAB, and said he was optimistic.
“I’m not saying I’m happy with the 42 per cent report from PILDAT,” he said. “It isn’t very favourable. But it is an improvement. We’ve also risen in CPI index – not by a lot, but at least we’re rising.” He mentioned in his address that this was still favourable compared to the same survey’s findings of 29% public confidence in police and 26% confidence in government officials.
During his presentation, Chaudhry said that good governance ensured maximum benefits and efficiency in improving the quality of life, but reminded the audiences that any such efforts were to no avail the face of corruption. Painting a backdrop of weak law enforcement and lack of accountability, he explained that it was the culture of resignation, acceptance and apathy towards corruption that had to be tackled.
“A corruption free Pakistan will remain a dream unless citizens refused to accept and tolerate corruption as a way of life at a personal, professional and occupational level.”
Answering a student’s query about the role of youth in the fight against corruption, he explained that the best thing to do would be “getting the word out”. “The new motto of NAB”, he said, “is ‘say ‘no’ to corruption.’ We need the appreciation and support of the public, especially the youth, and if you help us say ‘no’ to corruption, if you raise awareness and get that message to your friends and colleagues, I think you’ll have done your job.”
The event was attended by ESU members, educators from various institutions and students of various local schools and colleges.
Well done !
Its easy to fight corruption, you Feed strict anti corruption laws and more staff at NAB.Lock at Singapour 50 year back and now. They gave education and jobs to theier people. Corruption was handeled though harsh anti corruption laws.
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