ISLAMABAD - National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry has said that the bureau, as an apex anti-corruption body, required a dedicated and highly trained manpower to weed out corruption from the country.

While chairing a meeting regarding the progress of a two-week workshop of training of trainers (TOT) for investigation officers (IOs) and prosecutors held at the NAB Headquarters, he said that the NAB attached great importance to its human resource development. “A comprehensive yearly training plan for 2017 has been devised to ensure continued professional development of its officials and prosecutors,” he said.

Training and Research (T&R) Director-General told the meeting that 18 IOs and seven prosecutors of regional bureaus of NAB were trained during the workshop.

He said that in 2016, four refresher courses for 529 IOs and case officers (COs) and two refresher courses for 67 prosecutors were conducted. He said that in the same year, three inter-regional trainings for 87 IOs and COs and six capacity building courses for 28 officers/IOs/COs were conducted. The NAB in collaboration with Australian Federal Police, British High Commission, Asian Development Bank and other agencies arranged training courses for 125 NAB officers in 2016.

He further said that 21 training courses were offered by academies of other law enforcement agencies, government departments for 62 NAB officials in 2016. The DG said that the training programme for the year 2017 has been prepared in the light of regional feedback and input of experts from other law enforcing agencies and it has been presented for to the competent authority for approval.

The NAB chairman said that in order to ensure successful implementation of the training plan, it was equally important that trainers were fully geared up to undertake this responsibility. He said that training cells created at all regional levels were primarily responsible for carrying out the planned activities in their respective regional bureaus.