ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court was not surprised when National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry conceded before it on Thursday that the anti-corruption watchdog lacked a proper monitoring and evaluation system that could help ensure quantitative and qualitative analysis of its performance.

He said that at present no expert or expertise was available with NAB to ensure qualitative data analysis, but assured the court that the shortcomings would be overcome soon.

A three-judge bench, headed by Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja, which is seized with a case about the state of affairs in the bureau, had asked the NAB chairman to appear before it and explain the reasons for perceived foot dragging by the bureau in furnishing statistical data repeatedly sought by the court to evaluate its performance.

Also read: SC summons NAB chief over non-compliance of orders

“This is a tragedy of immense proportion that NAB does not have any framework,” the court observed and wondered how corruption which was the bane of society could be eliminated.

“The nation has created this anti-corruption institution and wants it to perform,” Justice Khawaja said.

Soon after attending the court proceedings, the NAB chairman called the Vice Chancellor of Lahore University of Management Sciences, Dr Sohail Naqvi, and sought his help to develop an effective monitoring and evaluation system in the bureau to improve accountability and governance.

According to a NAB announcement, Dr Naqvi agreed to send a LUMS team to the bureau’s headquarters in Islamabad to conduct a survey for setting up the monitoring and evaluation system at the earliest.

The NAB chairman informed the court that the bureau had hired services of four information technology experts who had assured the bureau that they would put in place an effective mechanism in three months so that “we could get the required information with one touch of a button”.

But the court suggested that NAB needed quantitative analysis experts instead of IT specialists.

“NAB has defective investigation process and inefficient prosecution and it seems that the anti-corruption watchdog does not want to eliminate corruption from society,” the court said, adding that the figures of different corruption references submitted by the bureau were ambiguous and misleading. Even the information sought was not identifiable or comprehensible, it regretted.

“Inquiries initiated by NAB go on endlessly,” the court said, adding that abuse of power in the bureau was evident.

NAB Prosecutor General Waqas Qadeer Dar, who submitted a 2,500-page report, informed the court that the guidelines issued by it would be incorporated in the bureau’s standard operating procedure (SOP).

But the court asked him to ensure that the guidelines were implemented and also determine why these had been breached in the past and who were responsible for it.

NAB is required to submit fresh SOP and framework at the next hearing on April 20.

The court regretted that despite several assurances, its directions were not complied with and only profuse apologies were offered by NAB officials in which the court had no interest.

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2015

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