ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has, since its inception, received around 343,356 complaints from individuals, private and public organizations and recovered around Rs287 billion from the corrupt.
This ill-gotten money was deposited in the national exchequer, NAB Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry said while chairing a monthly coordination meeting held in Islamabad to review progress made on past decisions.
He added that so far NAB had authorized 11,581 complaint verifications, 7,587 inquiries, 3,846 investigations, filed 2,808 corruption references with respective accountability courts with an overall conviction ratio of around 76 per cent.
NAB’s prime focus is on cases of cheating public at large by fraudulent financial companies, bank frauds, willful bank loan defaults, misuse of authority and embezzlement of state funds by government servants, he said.
Chaudhry said that the number of complaints, inquiries and investigations had almost doubled in 2017 when compared to same period of 2015.
The increase in the number of complaints, the NAB chief said, reflected the greater trust the public was reposing in the anti-corruption watchdog. In this regards, the PILDAT in its recent report noted that 42 per cent people trusted NAB while 30 per cent trusted the police and 29 per cent trusted government officials.
Moreover, a recent report from the Transparency International also improved Pakistan’s rating in Corruption Perception Index (CPI) from 126 to 116.
The World Economic Forum and Mishal Pakistan, according to the Global Competitiveness Index, rated Pakistan from 126 to 122 this year.
With NAB required to raise awareness about the ill-effects of corruption among the youth, Chaudhry said that they had collaborated with the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish over 45,000 Character Building Societies (CBSs) in universities and colleges across the country.
The target for this year, he said, was for the number of CBSs to rise to at least 50,000.
