ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has realised that it has failed to overcome pendency of cases, which has adversely affected the performance of the organisation.

According to a circular sent to the regional NAB authorities, the bureau’s chairman expressed unhappiness over non-disposal of pending cases and chalked out an action plan to address the issue.

“In a circular communicated to the regional NABs for strict compliance, concern has been raised that despite hard earned taxpayers’ money being spent on NAB, it has not been able to decrease the pendency rate, which depicts low productivity of the bureau,” the NAB spokesman said on Friday.

He said the NAB chief had ordered implementation of the action plan from the current month. “The objective of the action plan is to reduce the pendency rate of NAB cases at all stages, including inquiries, investigations and trials,” he added.

President Mamnoon Hussain also urged the NAB chairman to ‘do more’ when he presented the bureau’s annual report for 2013 last week.

More than 300 high-profile cases of politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen are pending with NAB.

The present management of NAB claimed on Jan 10 that it had reopened over 300 high-profile pending cases that had allegedly been dumped during the last government. However, no significant progress has been made in this regard.

These cases had remained unattended for the past four years due to different reasons and they were still in the inquiry or investigation stage, a NAB official said, adding that none of them had been sent to an accountability court.

According to NAB sources, the pending cases are against leaders of various parties, including the PPP, PML-N, MQM and PML-Q.

“The NAB chief has taken serious view of increase in pendency at various stages of enforcement work and has directed all concerned to be more pro-active in this regard. On the directive of the chairman, the bureau has prepared an action plan for reduction of pending cases on a monthly basis,” the spokesman said.

ACTION PLAN: According to the plan, the wings and regions concerned have been asked to re-prioritise workload of investigation officers on the basis of work done so far. The inquiries and investigations on which 80 per cent or more work has been done will be concluded in a month. “Cases which are required to be completed by May 30 should be completed without any further time extension,” the plan says. “Observations and queries raised by a high-level committee on ‘old cases’ should be addressed within the shortest possible time, leading to the logical conclusion.”

The plan envisages implementation of the concept of combined investigation teams and says the case officers should discuss cases with their teams on a daily basis. The teams are required to brief the director concerned twice a week.

The regional directors general have been asked to get a briefing about the progress every week from the directors and on a monthly basis from the investigation teams. The regional headquarters have to forward an updated list of ongoing inquires and investigations with the timeline to the NAB headquarters on the 3rd of every month.

The regional headquarters have been asked to strictly follow the new operational methodology for complaint verification, inquiries and investigations. Only one extension will be granted by a regional director general. In case of a requirement for a further extension, the approval of the chairman will have to be sought.

The prosecution division has to adopt similar measures and daily work reports have to be submitted regarding progress of cases in courts by all deputy prosecutors general and the prosecutor general for accountability, as well as the chairman.

Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2014