ISLAMABAD: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry has directed officers of the bureau to lay hands on all absconders and proclaimed offenders involved in cases of white-collar crime.
A spokesman for the bureau quoted the chairman as saying: “All officers and officials of NAB should work hard and conduct all complaint verifications, inquiries and investigation on merit and arrest all proclaimed offenders and absconders so that they should be brought to justice.”
Mr Qamar Zaman said the bureau was committed to using all its resources to eradicate corruption across the board.
He said it was encouraging that for the first time eradication of corruption had been made a part of governance agenda in the country.
“The Planning Commission of Pakistan has included a chapter devoted to issues of corruption in the 11th five-year plan and we intend to work closely with Planning Commission to achieve the goals set in the plan,” he said.
The chairman said the bureau had prosecuted corrupt elements and recovered Rs266.544 billion since its inception.
He termed it a record achievement.
He said a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) had been devised and timelines had been set for efficient, effective and expeditious disposal of cases — a maximum of 10 months from complaint verification-to-inquiry-to-investigation and finally to filing a reference in the accountability court.
In order to ensure uniformity and standardisation, the SOPs for investigation officers (IOs) were revised after a gap of 10 years to benefit from the experience of senior supervisory officers.
A system of combined investigation team comprising director, additional director, investigation officer and a senior legal counsel has been put in place.
“This will not only lend quality to the work but also ensure that no single individual can influence the proceedings,” the chairman said.
He said that last year NAB had devised a comprehensive Quantified Grading System (QGS) in order to review the annual performance of its regional bureaus and improve the performance of its officers.
“Under the grading system, regional bureau’s performance is being evaluated at a given criteria — 80 per cent are considered for ‘outstanding/excellent’, marks between 60 to 79 per cent are considered for ‘very good’, marks between 40 to 49 per cent are given for ‘good’, while marks less than 40 per cent are awarded for ‘below average’.
Mr Qamar Zaman said NAB had developed a ‘monitoring and evaluation’ system to maintain data at each stage, including complaint entry, complaint verification, investigation, prosecution and record preservation of regional board meetings and executive board meetings.
