PESHAWAR: The National Accountability Bureau, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has claimed it has filed 371 corruption references with accountability courts in the province, arrested 607 people over corruption and recovered Rs2.946 billion from them since its establishment in 1999.

The claim was made during a presentation of NAB Khyber Pakhtunkhwa director general Shahzad Saleem to NAB chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry at the bureau’s regional office here on Thursday.

The director general said since its inception, the NAB KP had received 32,318 complaints of corruption and they all had been disposed of. He said the NAB had so far authorised 1,300 inquiries, whereas 147 were under process.

Shahzad Saleem said the bureau had also ordered 570 investigations and 47 of them were underway. The NAB chairman said the bureau was committed to eliminating corruption and corrupt practice across the board.

He said corruption was a major hurdle to national progress and prosperity.

“It produces injustice and poverty and subsides merit by depriving a deserving person of its due right,” he said, adding that corruption affected country just like a cancer.

Qamar Zaman said corruption not only caused delays in the early completion of development projects but also caused huge losses to national exchequer. He said the increase in the number of complaints also reflected enhanced public trust in the NAB.

The chairman said the NAB Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was one of the important regional bureaus of NAB and that it was playing prominent role in contributing towards the overall performance of NAB. He appreciated the performance of regional bureau and ordered the arrest of all corrupt people, proclaimed offenders and absconders in line with the bureau’s enforcement policy.

Qamar Zaman directed the NAB KP officials to work more vigilantly, diligently and honestly to check corruption and corrupt practices in the province. He praised the director general and said performance of all wings of NAB KP under his supervision was appreciable.

The NAB director general told the chairman that the regional bureau was actively perusing the cause of elimination of corruption and corrupt practices through a holistic approach of awareness, prevention and enforcement by adopting zero tolerance policy across the board.

Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2015

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