NAB's 10 months timeframe for concluding white collar crime cases distinctive: Chairman NAB.

ISLAMABAD -- Chairman NAB Justice (Retd) Javed Iqbal has said the bureau was the only institution in the world which has itself fixed 10 months' timeframe to conclude white collar crime cases.

In a statement, he said NAB under its National Anti-Corruption Strategy was committed for logical conclusion of mega corruption white collar crimes cases by adopting 'NAB's Faith-Corruption free Pakistan' Policy as the number of complaints in 2019 were much better as comparing to the figures of complaints received in 2018. The overall complaints in 2019 were 53,643. Of which 42,760 complaints were processed. Similarly the action was taken on 41,414 complaints from out of a total of 48,591 complaints received in 2018.

In 2019, the bureau had conducted 1,308 complaint verifications, 1,686 inquiries, 609 investigations and recovered Rs 241.542 billion from corrupt elements.

Likewise, the bureau had recovered Rs 466.069 billion since the year 2,000, according to the bureau's annual report of 2019.

He said that NAB has introduced a new concept of Combine Investigation Team (CIT) composed of Director, Additional Director, Investigation Officer and a Senior Legal Counsel to utilise their collective wisdom.

The accumulative success ratio of NAB was 68.8 percent in 2019 with 1,983 successful disposal of cases. NAB has established its state of the art Forensic Science Laboratory in NAB Rawalpindi. In 2019, 15,747 questioned documents and 300 thumb impressions were analyzed in 50 cases and forensic analysis was carried out on 74 digital devices (Laptops, Mobile phones, Hard Disks etc).

A total of 1,219 corruption references, involving over Rs 900 billion were under trial in different Accountability Courts.

Justice Javed said that absconders and proclaimed offenders would be arrested and taken to task as per law to recover looted money from them and subsequent depositing it in national...