LAHORE, Dec 20: The National Accountability Bureau will retain only those officials of the crime and economic crime wings of the Federal Investigation Agency who have a background in commerce education, and send the rest to the surplus pool.

A decision in this regard is expected to be taken at a meeting of the NAB and FIA officials in the last week of this month.

The federal cabinet announced to merge FIA’s crime and economic wings with the NAB on Sept 20 and constituted a special committee to work out the modalities in this regard.

The committee will decide the fate of the 630 cases and 965 inquiries pending with the crime wing and about 590 cases and over 850 inquiries with the economic crime wing of the FIA. It will also decide whether the NAB should deal with all these inquiries and cases or only with the high-profile ones.

Sources said NAB would retain only those FIA officers who had done their post-graduation in economics, commerce, business administration or chartered accountancy, because its main function is to detect financial embezzlement and collect incriminatory evidence.

The remaining officers would go to the surplus pool of the establishment division. — Reporter