Complaints to NAB have doubled: Javed Iqbal

ISLAMABAD: Complaints, inquiries and investigations sent to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) have doubled this year, says the chairman of the anti-graft body.

On Friday, Justice (r) Javed Iqbal, chairman of the Bureau, chaired a meeting to review the performance of the operation, prosecution, training, research, awareness and prevention divisions of the anti-corruption watchdog.

Iqbal told his team, NAB was committed to eradicating corruption by adopting an “accountability for all policy with iron hands”. He assured those gathered that the white-collar mega corruption cases will reach their logical conclusion.

“The complaints, inquiries and investigations have almost double as compared to the figures of same period of 2018 to 2019,” Iqbal announced.

In the last 22 months the Bureau, he revealed, has recovered Rs71 billion and deposited the amount in the national exchequer. During the same period, the NAB has filed 600 corruption references in the accountability courts across the country. This, Iqbal said, was a record achievement.

The NAB has also recently introduced a Combine Investigation Team (CIT), which will comprise of a director, additional director, investigation officer and a senior legal counsel. This will not only lend quality to the work but also ensuring that no single individual can influence the official proceedings of NAB, Iqbal further added.

To help the NAB better gather evidence, it has set up a state-of-the-art Forensic Science LAB in the NAB Rawalpindi Bureau, which has the facilities of digital forensics and fingerprint analysis.