August 18, 2008	Monday	Sha'aban 15, 1429

LAHORE, Aug 17: The fund-starved National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is likely to shed another 200 of its employees in the next lay-off phase.

"If the present state of funds shortage persists, we will have to further lay off at least 200 employees in days to come as a last resort," NAB’s Punjab Director General Maj Shahnawaz Badar (retired) told Dawn.

In the first phase, the NAB had shown the door to over 300 employees, half of them officers, following drastic cuts in its budget for 2008-09 by the federal government.

Responding to a report that the bureau was going to further repatriate and sack 1,500 employees, he maintained that having a total strength of 1,600 or so officials, it could only be possible if the NAB was abolished.

The NAB has constitutional protection under schedule 6 and requires an amendment, with prior approval from the president of Pakistan, if it has to be abolished. Though Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani had hinted at its abolition, nothing concrete had been done in this regard so far.

It is learnt that the government wants to do away with the bureau once it succeeds in ousting President Musharraf. Interestingly, none of the politicians belonging to the PPP-led coalition government showed interest in reforming the bureau.

The DG said the government had been informed that given its present financial state, NAB could not be run beyond three months. He said the bureau had already stopped taking 50 per cent fresh cases and was transferring the remaining ones to the Anti-Corruption Establishment of the four provinces. “Now our focus is on the cases involving public fraud at large.”

Mr Badar suggested that instead of doing away with the bureau the authorities concerned should make it more autonomous and equip it with more powers so that it could emerge as a transparent body to fight corruption.

He was of the view that the NAB at least deserved some credit as a country like China had sought help from it in developing its anti-corruption mechanism.

He said while making recruitments in the bureau, people with right aptitude should be given priority and specialised training as well. “If we need to deal with corruption in our society, an awareness campaign will have to be launched at school level.”

The DG said despite unfavourable conditions the NAB Punjab managed to file 40 references this year and recovered Rs556 million through Voluntary Return and another Rs42 million through Plea Bargain processes. It also recovered and returned Rs23.5 million to 159 victims of forex scam and Rs530 million to 10,000 persons affected by Double Shah scam.