ISLAMABAD: President Mamnoon Hussain underlined the need on Tuesday for devising a comprehensive national plan to weed out corruption from society.

“There is a need to devise cohesive strategies and plans of action to fight and uproot corruption from the country,” the president said while addressing a seminar organised by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on the occasion of the International Anti-Corruption Day at the Presidency.

He said that efficient and effective measures were required to prevent and combat the menace of corruption.

“Rigorous implementation of anti-corruption laws is needed to curb the disease of corruption,” he said.

The president said that corruption posed a grave threat to society and stressed the need for checking elements causing its promotion in society.

“Unchecked corruption not only erodes democratic institutions, stunts economic growth but it also degrades ethical values,” the president said.

Mr Mamnoon called for further strengthening anti-corruption departments and institutions, particularly NAB, to enable them to positively continue making efforts in weeding the curse.

He called for stringent and impartial application of law to eliminate the scourge.

Speaking on the occasion, Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms Ahsan Iqbal said the government was committed to fighting corruption in all its forms and was undertaking measures to eliminate it.

NAB chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry said since its inception in 1999, NAB so far recovered over Rs261 billion.

He said all governments would have to play a leading role to ensure good governance in terms of efficiency, productivity and quality of life.

“Good governance means authorities becoming responsive and using public funds prudently to ensure optimum return for every rupee spent from the national exchequer,” he said.

The NAB chairman said how far NAB had been successful in its endeavour was a matter of debate, adding that the institution had prosecuted the corrupt and had recovered over Rs4 billion of looted public money in 2014, bringing the total recovery to Rs261 billion to date.

He said the amount allocated for NAB since its creation in 1999 stood at Rs7.6 billion, which was only 2.75 per cent of recoveries made by the institution.

The number of applications it received this year was 19,900 and in the previous year it received 10,500 applications.

“This increase in the number of applications to NAB is reflective of the people’s confidence in our work,” the NAB chief said.

Mr Qamar said it was encouraging for NAB that for the first time anti-corruption and good governance had been made a part of development agenda of the country.

“The Planning Commission of Pakistan has included a chapter devoted to the issue of corruption in the 11th Five Years Plan and we intend to work closely with the Planning Commission to achieve goals set in there,” he said.

He said the latest Transparency International report (CPI) had ranked Pakistan at the 126th position of 175 countries worldwide.

Published in Dawn, December 10th, 2014