QUETTA: The National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) deputy chairman, Mohammad Imtiaz Tajwar, has said that the organisation is committed to eradicating corruption by adopting a ‘zero tolerance policy’.

“Corruption is the mother of all evils,” he said, adding that it undermined development and the rule of law. He said corruption caused delay in the completion of development projects and huge losses to the national exchequer.

Mr Tajwar was addressing NAB officials during a visit to its Balochistan headquarters where he reviewed its performance on the basis of the annual inspection conducted by the Chairman’s Inspection and Monitoring Team (CI&MT) here on Friday.

Commitment to rid country of corruption reiterated

The CI&MT carried out the annual inspection of NAB Balochistan between Feb 22 and Feb 25 to review and evaluate the performance of NAB Quetta bureau on the basis of the Partly Quantified Grading System (PQGS).

Mr Tajwar said that NAB Balochistan was a very important bureau of the organisation and was making consolidated efforts to eliminate corruption from the country.

“Despite the law and order situation and vast area of Balochistan, the regional bureau performed in a befitting manner,” the deputy chairman said while lauding the role of retired Major Tariq Mehmood Malik, the director general of NAB Balochistan.

He urged the officials to continue the efforts to eradicate corruption with the same zeal, expressing the hope that the grey areas identified by the inspection team would be removed.

The deputy chairman was informed that in 2015, NAB Balochistan received 901 complaints which were processed according to the law. Of these, verification of 281 complaints was completed and another 165 were investigated.

The bureau’s efforts resulted in the recovery of Rs540 million.

Published in Dawn, February 27th, 2016