KARACHI, March 20: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has recovered Rs59 billion from bank defaulters and Rs2 billion on account of corrupt practices from government functionaries.

This was disclosed by NAB chairman Lt-Gen Munir Hafeez at a meeting on “Performance of NAB and its future” at NIPA on March 14.

He said fines of Rs6 billion were also pronounced. He claimed that these efforts had resulted in saving of Rs30 billion in the public sector organizations.

Mr Hafeez said that NAB had come out with clear policy on the cases of businessmen, which was based on agreement between the party and the bank as on the modalities of paying back. Those businessmen who will violate the agreements and commitments of paying back would find intervention by the NAB.

He dispelled the impression that provinces are discriminated in the on-going accountability exercise.

The NAB chief said that after September 11 incidents, people were also bringing back voluntarily stored money in the foreign countries because of too much investigation on unaccounted accumulations of foreign origin people in the countries where money is stored.

Ex-chairman, Export Promotion Bureau, Wajid Jawwad, said that on bank defaults, a more careful attitude had to be adopted.