ISLAMABAD - Executive Board Meeting (EBM) of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Tuesday authorised regular inquiries of the officials of Capital Development Authority, management of River Garden Housing Society, and mega corruption cases in Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) for inflicting billion of rupee losses to public exchequer.
According to NAB spokesman, the EBM chaired by chairman NAB Justice (retired) Javed authorised comprehensive investigation into prime mega sugar and wheat scandals including extortion of billion of rupees, undue price increase, smuggling of wheat/ sugar and subsidy on sugar.
The EBM accorded approval of sending the complaint verification against management of International Islamic University and others to relevant department.
The EBM approved closing inquiries against officers/officials of Privatisation Commission of Pakistan and others, Justice Malik Muhammad Qayyum, former Attorney General of Pakistan and others, Professor Dr Ikramullah Khan, Head of Department, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) Islamabad, and others, managing committee of the Interior Employees Cooperative Housing Society, Raja Ali Akbar and others, owing to absence of evidence as per law.
The Deputy Chairman, Prosecutor General Accountability, Director General Operations and other senior officers of NAB attended the meeting.
Chairman NAB said that the anti-graft watchdog had filed 610 corruption references in various accountability courts and directly or indirectly recovered record Rs 178 billion from corrupt elements in last two years period and deposited the entire recovered amount into national exchequer. Right now 1,275 corruption references having accumulated value of Rs 943 billion were under trial in various accountability courts.
The meeting of EBM noted that all the inquiries and investigations are initiated on the basis of alleged allegations which are not final. The decision to go ahead with the cases is taken after obtaining the point of view of the accused persons.
Meanwhile, Chairman NAB said that NAB’s faith is Corruption Free Pakistan. NAB always believes in concentrating on merits of case sans caring about the face behind the case and taking it to the logical conclusion, he added.
He said NAB’s priority is to eradicate corruption from the country, recover the looted amount from the plunderers, and taking white-collar corruption cases to logical conclusion besides returning people’s hard earned money looted by illegal housing cooperative societies.
He said the performance of NAB had already been acknowledged by reputed international organisations including World Economic Forum which is an honour for the bureau.
Chairman NAB urged the people and regulator to play their role to check the mushroom growth of illegal housing societies. He asked print and electronic media to confirm authenticity including availability of land, approval of Layout plan and NOC from relevant regulator, of a housing society before printing/ broadcasting the advertisement campaign. He said this is essential as some housing societies exist only on papers and they do not have approval from the relevant regulator. Despite that they succeed in looting people due to their attractive advertisements.
Chairman directed the Director Generals to take complaint verifications, inquiries and investigation within the prescribed timeframe. He directed investigation officers and prosecutors to pursue the cases with complete preparations, collect concrete evidence as per law so that the corrupt elements could be punished.
