ISLAMABAD, Dec 27: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved Technical Assistance (TA) worth $120,000 for combating and eradicating corruption from the country.

The ADB will assist the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) as part of its nationwide strategy to restructure and thereby improve the bureau’s investigative, technical and management capacity, leading to institutional reorganisation at the federal and provincial levels, better coordination amongst anti-corruption agencies and linkage with the government’s access to justice and devolution commitments.

According to the local ADB office, the bank will also provide assistance to assess the training needs of the NAB and prepare systematic training programme for it with an immediate as well as long-term view.

The technical assistance will complement the Asian Development Bank-supported Access to Justice Programme and Decentralization Support Programme in strengthening the NAB’s capacity to implement those parts of these programmes which have a direct or indirect bearing on the prevention of corruption.

The National Accountability Bureau will be the executing agency for the TA and the Chief of Staff of NAB will be the project director.

The National Accountability Bureau has agreed to assign counterpart staff and consultants to implement the planned components of the technical assistance.

Selected officials from the NAB will participate in the review of the training needs as well as preparation of training programmes, curricula, modules and other training materials.

The technical assistance will be implemented over a six-month period beginning January 2003.