07 August 2004	Saturday	20 Jamadi-us-Saani 1425

ISLAMABAD, Aug 6: Prime Minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain has renewed the government's commitment to eliminate corruption and has directed the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to continue its efforts to dispense justice at investigation stage.

The prime minister's remarks followed a presentation made by National Accountability Bureau Chairman, Lt-Gen Munir Hafeez at prime minister's secretariat on Friday.

Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz was also present on the occasion. Besides functioning of NAB and review of its performance, the prime minister was also briefed about the recent National Accountability Bureau efforts towards organizational restructuring and increasing its internal capacity to handle the workload.

The prime minister said that with increased capacity, NAB would be able to handle more cases that would lower the incidences of corruption in the country. The premier said that a corruption-free society was the ultimate objective behind all our accountability efforts.

This would give a sense of protection to common citizen and further improve the country's position in the comity of nations, he added. He emphasized that there should be no personal vendetta while investigating cases.

The prime minister also stressed on the need for international cooperation in combating corruption and said that in order to become a modern nation, "we must adopt the internationally accepted best practices of management and good governance".

Pakistan must come out of the grips of the menace of corruption in order to be a progressive and economically independent state, he added. The prime minister said the National Anti-Corruption Strategy was actually the way forward for Pakistan with its three-pronged approach of public education and awareness, prevention of corruption and effective enforcement, which will reduce corruption. -APP