KARACHI, May 3: The National Accountability Bureau has decided to set up its own police force and hire experts for field operations to end corruption and corrupt practices in the country.

The decision was taken in the 18th conference of director-generals of NAB, which was presided over by NAB Chairman retired Admiral Fasih Bokhari.

The two-day moot, which concluded here on Friday, thoroughly deliberated the performance of operation and prevention wings of the organisation and reviewed measures to improve its efficiency.

Addressing the concluding session, the NAB chairman said that the bureau would focus on completing the ongoing investigations and mega corruption cases would be taken up.

He said that any clue of corruption within NAB would not be spared and directed all the regions to evolve a strong mechanism for internal monitoring to boost efficiency.

He said that the departments not following relevant rules would be taken to task and the bureau would intervene for streamlining the regulatory mechanism in the country, which he said was on a verge of collapse and needed a major overhauling.

The conference agreed that the bureau would have its own police force for effective security and field operations.

It asked the Sindh director-general to develop an implementation mechanism regarding the detailing size of the force and needs and expenditure involved. He would also present a proposal for requirements and purchase of weapons for security and operations of NAB. The conference was informed that NAB was facing problems in execution of its mandated assignments in the absence of a dedicated force for security and operations.

The police cadre of the bureau would help to cope with the problems by strengthening indigenous security system and improving the operations.

The conference also decided to establish a pool of experts to monitor the irregularities in working of different organizations, particularly bank frauds, customs duty evasion, sales tax / income tax misappropriations, SROs and financial publications, etc. The experts would be hired on a contact and assignment basis.

NAB would also monitor the budgets of mega projects at the provincial and federal level.

The bureau also decided to revive its system of informers to unveil corruption in line with international practices.

It was decided that a national witness protection programme would be evolved in the light of experiences of international organisations and in consultation with other investigation agencies of the country.

NAB officials decided to end a condition that restricted the anti-corruption agency to take up cases below Rs50 million. However, preference would be given to mega corruption cases and the smaller cases would be transferred to other agencies with a direction that the bureau must be kept into loop.

The conference also decided to gear up efforts for its expansion plan and decided to set up three new regions for eradication of corruption and better monitoring of its activities across the country.

This expansion is part of the programme to reach out to district level and be more responsive to complaints of the general public. The new regions being crafted would include Multan, Sukkar and Gilgat-Baltistan.