LAHORE: Punjab Chief Secretary Yousaf Naseem Khokhar has constituted a three-member team to liaise with the NAB, creating a permanent effective communication link with it regarding government procedures and processes.

The team is headed by the additional chief secretary and its members include special secretary finance and planning and development secretary.

The chief secretary told Dawn on Saturday that the committee had been notified after NAB Chairman retired Justice Javed Iqbal recently spoke to the provincial bureaucracy.

He said the aim of the appointment of the team was to avoid any communication gap between NAB and the provincial government. It was to serve as a normal channel of information for NAB, assisting it to know provincial government’s procedures and processes.

The chief secretary said officials of the finance department and the planning and development board had been assigned the job as most questions were asked about budget and development.

He said the government and NAB were working together to reach the objective of accountability in a coordinated manner.

Mr Khokhar said the team would also assist NAB in conducting its inquiries, helping it get information where it would feel any difficulty. It would listen to officers who might face any undue pressures or lodge any complaint, he said.

Meanwhile, the chief secretary has said that the complaint of bureaucrats’ reluctance to sanction funds or development projects because of fear of the NAB bashing was not lodged by him in a meeting presided over by Dr Ishrat Hussain in Lahore on Friday.

Published in Dawn, May 19th, 2019