ISLAMABAD: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Justice (Retd) Javed Iqbal has instructed operations, prosecution divisions and all regional bureaus to make all-out efforts to conclude all ongoing complaint verifications, inquiries and investigations within the prescribed time frame after collecting concrete and solid evidence.
Javed Iqbal has said the Bureau was striving hard to ensure complete implementation of the rule of law, adding that some elements tried to do propaganda against the NAB but despite that, the Bureau would continue to work purely on merit.
Regarding the complaints of the business community, he said that no businessman in the country had to face problems due to NAB, adding the stock exchange could not show a positive trend if the NAB was creating problems for the business community.
Javed Iqbal also took notice of not submitting the details of contracts of over Rs 50 million projects by some public sector departments to the bureau for scrutiny.
The NAB chairman ordered the regional director generals to ensure submission of copies of such projects by the relevant departments to the Awareness and Prevention Division.
He said that all public sector departments were duty-bound to submit the copies of contracts of Rs50 million or above to NAB for scrutiny under its prevention regime. Strict action would be taken against the officers in case of failure to obey the orders.
On March 3, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had approved a new inquiry against the leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly and the PML-N’s president Shehbaz Sharif.
However, the inquires against former finance minister Ishaq Dar and former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Akram Khan Durrani were closed due to lack of evidence.
According to a notification issued Wednesday by the anti-graft watchdog, the approvals for two references and eight new inquiries were approved during a meeting of the NAB Executive Board presided over by Justice (r) Javed Iqbal.
The eight new inquiries approved by the NAB Executive Board included one against Shehbaz Sharif, the notification said.
Corruption references against the former Capital Development Authority (CDA) chairperson, Imtiaz Inayat Elahi, and the former director-general of the Parks and Horticulture, Karachi, Liaquat Ali Khan, were also approved, read the notification.
NAB decided to refer the investigations against officers and officials and others of NADRA to the Interior Ministry, sending two cases to CDA, cases against officers/officials of National Highways to the Ministry of Communication for further action.
