LAHORE – National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has deposited record Rs 289.991 billion in the national kitty, besides filing 3,488 corruption references in various accountability courts and apprehending 3,813 corruption suspects, this was told in a meeting of anti-graft watchdog’s meeting chaired by Chairman Justice Javed Iqbal here on Thursday.
The meeting held to review the overall performance of NAB was told that National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has so far received 408431 applications since inception and conducted complaint verification of 14069, approved 9,400 inquiries, 4,122 investigations.
Furthermore, 1,219 corruption references involving Rs 895.135 billion were being heard by various accountability courts.
NAB had received 54,344 complaints from October 11, 2017, to Dec 31, 2018. Out of which 2,125 complaints were verified, 1,059 inquiries were conducted besides approving 302 investigations against various corrupt elements.
The meeting was told that NAB has apprehended 561 corruption suspects besides filing 540 corruption references in various accountability courts in the last 13 months since assuming coveted charge by incumbent post of chairman. NAB has also recovered record Rs 3919.011 million and deposited in the national kitty during the tenure of current chairman.
The punishment ratio of NAB has increased up to 70.08 per cent during the year 2018 which is unmatched as compared to such other institutions, the meeting was told.
Speaking on the occasion Justice Javed said that eradicating corruption and taking mega corruption cases to the logical conclusion was a priority of NAB. Absconders would be arrested and taken to task as per law, besides recovering the looted money from their possession. This would help to put the country on road to progress and to complete development projects.
He directed regional bureaus to file applications in accountability courts for expediting the hearings. He directed prosecutors to pursue the corruption cases with full preparations to conclude the cases to logical conclusion. He said NAB is the only institution which has fixed a ten-month period to conclude the corruption cases besides establishing a forensic lab in Islamabad to help to collect authentic evidence from the corruption suspects.
