ANTI CORRUPTION AGENCIES

ANTI CORRUPTION AGENCIES

Background
In his historical address to the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on 11th August, 1947, the Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah identified the first priority of his government as maintenance of Law and order. He defined the second duty in the following words:-


“One of the biggest curse from which India is suffering, I do not say that other
Countries are free from it, but I think our condition is much worse, is bribery and
Corruption. That really is a poison. We must put it down with an iron hand”

(Quaid-e-Azam, 11th August, 1947)


Unfortunately, in the last 62 years, nobody gave any importance to these golden words of the Quaid. Some efforts were made for combating the menace of corruption but lacked the will of the government and politicians. Today this corruption has become the root cause of all the evils and it is affecting all the individuals in the country. This corruption, nepotism and favourism have ruined all the institutions of our country. Institutions like police and judiciary, which is responsible for providing justice to the innocent people, provides justice to the influential people of our country. Owing to that reason, there has been a significant upsurge in corruption during 1985-1995.

Now it is the time for understanding what is the role of anti-corruption organizations?

Anti-Corruption Agencies

Definition
“Anti” means against and we know what corruption is. Since there is no universally accepted definition of anti-corruption, so all the agencies or departments (whether government organizations or private firms) working for curbing corruption in their respective fields of interest are known as anti-corruption agencies.

For many years, the anti-corruption policy makers were thinking of establishing law and enforcement agencies to deal with corruption. The people of Pakistan also advocated the establishment of such agencies and hence some agencies came into existence with the primary (or some with the secondary) role of curbing corruption in Pakistan.


Today Pakistan has six anti-corruption agencies, two at the federal level and four at the provincial level. In addition to these agencies there are three laws and three sets of courts related to anti-corruption. The agencies at the federal level are the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and at the provincial level we have Anti Corruption Establishments (ACEs). Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) 1860 (sections 160-165), Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA) 1947 and the NAB Ordinance 1999 are the three laws and Accountability Courts and the Central and Provincial Special Courts are the three sets of courts.





National Accountability Bureau

The most effective and controversial anti-corruption agency is the National Accountability Bureau.
The National Accountability Bureau is the leading anti-corruption agency of Pakistan. It is charged with the task of eradication of corruption in the country. Initially corruption was eradicated by the means of force only but later on NAB adopted a three pronged strategy for curbing corruption. It operates under the National Accountability Ordinance-1999 (NAO) and takes action against all those offences falling within the NAO.
The cases prepared by NAB are tried by Accountability Courts.
Before discussing the strengths and weaknesses of NAB, it is important to take a look at NAO and NACS.

National Accountability Ordinance, 1999
Soon after taking over in 1999, General Pervaiz Musharraf announced his seven points agenda which included the resurgence of the economy, reinstatement of law and order, dispensation of speedy justice and swift and across–the-board accountability. Hence the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) came into existence. The NAO is the most comprehensive piece of legislation to date in Pakistan for controlling corruption but at the same time it gives NAB extraordinary powers. Following are the few powers that NAO gives to the NAB

Chairman
Some of the main powers of the Chairman, NAB include:
a) order non-bail able arrest of the accused for inquiry and investigation for a maximum of 90 days;
b) order freezing of the property of the accused;
c) call for information from or examination of any person and the production of any document relevant to the proceedings;
d) request a foreign state for all kinds of assistance necessary for investigation; and
e) release an accused if he returns to NAB the assets acquired through corruption among others.”(Samad, 2008)


NAO gives too many powers to the Chairman NAB and this ordinance can be a powerful instrument of unleashing terror if the Chairman is an irresponsible person. Many critics are of the view that a large number of provisions in this ordinance are the violation of the basic human rights. Following are the major ones:

Detention without Warrant
The NAO gives the power to the Chairman to detain any person alleged of being corrupt and keep him in custody for 90 days until proven culpable. Initially, some people were arrested without any evidence of their involvement in corruption but after that Supreme Court gave a verdict that NAB can arrest someone only if they have any evidence strong enough to arrest any individual for further interrogation.

Plea Bargain
NAB will not punish any individual accused of corruption if he/she surrenders all the looted wealth. Plea Bargaining is a subject of severe criticism because such provisions let those criminals go who deserve punishments.

Such provisions also make NAB a money recuperating agency but not one which effectively punishes corrupt people and restrain it by setting up examples. Such provisions also gives an impression that there has been some sort of a deal between the criminals and the NAB authorities and this gives an impression that if you have money in this country, you can get yourself out of trouble.

Imprisonment
Under the NAO, if someone is caught for the offence of corruption, he is made punishable with 14 years of rigorous imprisonment. This law is applicable to all the individuals living in Pakistan, except serving personnel’s of the armed forces of Pakistan and judiciary.

Exemption of Armed Forces and Judiciary from NAB
Serving personnel’s of the Armed Forces and judiciary are not answerable to NAB under this ordinance. It is worth mentioning here that according to the report of Transparency International, lower judiciary is the second most corrupt government department in Pakistan and unlike Armed Forces of Pakistan, judiciary does have any internal control mechanism to keep a check on their officials.

High Profile Politicians not convicted
Till today, not even a single prominent politician has been successfully prosecuted. In July 2000, NAB prepared a case against Nawaz Sharif for his alleged involvement in corruption as charged by General Musharraf, then Chief Executive of Pakistan. He was sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment but due to some political reasons he was pardoned and exiled to Saudi Arabia. In the general elections of 2002, all those elected to the assemblies were the same people linked with corruption in the past and in some cases ministries were given to those who had either their cases pending or were already convicted

National Anti-Corruption Strategy
As mentioned earlier, NAB has now also seen made responsible for enhancing awareness related to corruption and for its prevention in addition to its enforcement function. An amendment was made in NAO in 2002 and an attempt was made to develop an anti corruption preventive model named “National Anti-Corruption Strategy (NACS)". This model was developed because NAB was of the view that enforcement alone would not be enough to control corruption and hence NACS came into existence. This model focuses on curbing corruption by adopting three pronged approach of awareness, prevention and enforcement.





Federal Investigation Agency:
The Federal Investigation Agency came into existence in 1975, following the promulgation of the FIA Act, 1974 with the primary role of the eradication of corruption.
In 2004, government transferred Anti-Corruption wing of the FIA to the NAB but on 16 August, 2004 this wing of FIA was restored vide notification dated 24 October, 2008.
The FIA carries out the investigations in receipt of reports of corruption, either through the Prime Minister’s Accountability and Coordination Cell or directly from the public and after the investigations, the cases are forwarded for trial by the accountability courts.

The performance of FIA is very poor owing to many reasons like it is a corrupt agency with
a strong element of harassment, it has a status of an attached department that comes under the interior ministry, it has many political appointees and it has multiple mandates.






Accountability Courts
Established under the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999, these courts were created for swift prosecution of cases involving corruption, misuse of power, fraud, bribery, commission etc.

These courts were instituted to arbitrate cases of officials/persons and defaulters involved in corruption and defaults and to recover all the amount from all those persons who have committed default in the refund of amounts of financial institution, banks, Government and other organizations.

Accountability Courts have successfully achieved the objectives of NAO by convicting thousands of corrupt officials/persons and defaulters and recovering all the wealth they had looted.

Today 21 accountability courts are working all over the country.

Performance of Anti-corruption agencies
There is great dissimilarity between the performances of the FIA and the NAB.


Grade 19 And Below:Subject(FIA)-Period(1996-00)-Convictions(167)-Average(33.4)
Grade 20 And Above:Subject(FIA)-Period(1996-00)-Convictions(Nill)-Average(Nill)

Grade 19 And Below:Subject(NAB)-Period(1999-02)-Convictions(186)-Average(62)
Grade 20 And Above:Subject(NAB)-Period(1999-02)-Convictions(35)-Average(11.6/year)


Since its existence in 1974, FIA has a poor record as an anti-corruption agency. Its conviction rate of cases related to corruption is not more than 28%.The extent of its failure can be judged on the basis that it has not convicted even a single officer above grade 19.

Contrary to this, the performance of NAB has been much better than the FIA. From 1999 to 2002, NAB convicted 221 public officials, 15 officers of Grade 19, 24 of them in Grade 20, 10 in Grade 21 and one in Grade 22 .It is worth mentioning here that NAB has a conviction rate of 54% higher than that of the FIA.As far as the average time is concerned so NAB takes 19 months for solving a case (from investigation to conviction) as compared to 4.5 years for FIA.The overall record of NAB up to December 2007 is as follows:





NAB also provided assistance to thousands of people caught up in various financial scams.NAB has recovered billions of rupees taken away through frauds and returned them to the rightful owners.

There had been several high profile cases of fraud involving various companies and in some cases individuals, offering money with high rates of interest. Many innocent people fell a prey to such people and invested money in their schemes. Initially these companies made payments to their clients but soon fled away with all the money.NAB investigated such cases, recovered and returned 6.77 billion rupees to the affectees.

Other the other hand many people even many government officials are off the view that NAB
Other anti-corruption agencies are the most corrupt agencies. Officials appointed in these agencies they themselves are the most corrupt people in Pakistan. Different officials are off the view that the names of these agencies should be changed.

Addl.IG Abdul Hadi Bullo(Personal communication dated 8th March, 2009) is of the view that

“I think that now government should change the name of these agencies from anti-corruption to accepting-corruption agencies.”








Reference Page

• http://www.nab.gov.pk/Downloads/Doc/NACS.pdf

• http://www.nab.gov.pk/Downloads/Seminar-Report.pdf

• http://www.nab.gov.pk/Downloads/Report.rar

• Samad, S. (2008). Combating corruption: The case of the National Accountability Bureau, Pakistan, JOAAG, Vol. 3. No.1.retrieved march 9th, 2009, from
http://www.joaag.com/uploads/9_SamadFinal.pdf



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Comments

  1. good research Mr.Taimoor Khalid.from this research one thing is clear that why all our politicians are against NAB.

    ReplyDelete
  2. politicians are not only against NAB but also against every institution which smells honest

    ReplyDelete
  3. Bus mily huy hain koi b muqlis nahi. NAB waly b deal kar lyty hain mery pass pakistan ki history ki sub sy bari corruption ki detail hai na NAB ny action lia hai na Supereme court ny. agar koi contect karna chaey to contacet me at this # 0336-5708464

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dear sir,
    i have purchased a 500 yards plot file in cbrechs islamabad.the seller of the property is unable to go to islamabad due to bad health condition.
    i requested mr.shezad wasti for the transfer of the property in karachi as per rule and facility provided by the society for its members who can not travel.mr.shezad wasti demanded Rs.30,000/-as bribe for the transfer of said property.i delayed to catch a moment when shezad wasti was not in karachi.
    but meanwhile i also requested mr.nadeem khan who is vice president of the society to to demand transfer register in karachi without bringing into the notice of shezad wasti as he was in islamabad.
    register was sent to karachi and unfortunately shezad wasti returned to karachi,again i was advised by nadeem khan to talk to shezad wasti.
    he then set a time to come to the seller`s home and reminded me to bring Rs.30,000/-in cash and a pay order of Rs.20,000/- as transfer fee.
    i disagreed to give him Rs.30,000/- and i made a pay order of Rs.20,000/- as transfer fee,he then refused to provide this facility and said"you both will have to go to islamabad for the transfer of property"
    there was no door to knock but this one for seeking justice bringing the official to task.

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    ReplyDelete
  5. I am living in Saudi Arabia I want to bring my family here but her passport has been finished then I told to my brother go to Jhelum passport office and renew my waif passport when he go there with my waif and chilled with out any cause the office people got some problem in documents and told bring birth certificates then we give him that but he is not accepted that cause they need money and take 1500 Rupees and solve the problem And who take money this office manager.my Skype id is Love_you9076.

    ReplyDelete
  6. NAB IN PAKISTAN HAS BEEN MUCH EFFECTIVE IN APPREHEDING THE CORRUPT OFFICIALS BUT THE POLITICAL AND ARMED FORCES IN FLUANCE HAS ALWAYS DETERRORATED THE EFFICIENCY OF THE INSTITUTION. NAB CAN PERFORM MUCH BETTER IF MADE RESPOSIBLE TO REPORT TO CHIEF JUSTICE OF SUPREME COURT AND BE A RIGHT WING OF JUDICIERY.

    ReplyDelete
  7. there is a person who is working as a teacher in govt: high school kakar district dadu, province sindh. his Bachlors and Masters Degrees are not origional thse are falls . so how can i complaint against him with neb or anticurption for investigation ...

    ReplyDelete
  8. Mujhe nahi maloom k ap is complaint ko parthe bhi hain ya nahi ya is k khilef karvai karin gay ya nahi first time aap ko complaint kar raha hon mere pass wapda ka ak mulazam jis ka naam ashiq hussain hai mera bejli ka bill jama hone k bawajod mere pass aya k mujhe pessy (reshwat) do 2000 rupey jo k main ne na diye hain jis par meri us ke sath tu takrar hoi aur woh mera bijli ka metar kat kar chala gaya paroof tasverine mere pass majod hain bijli ka bill aur bank ki copy bhi majood hai.
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    ReplyDelete
  9. I have I complain against karachi kachi abadi authority depty director Abdul ghani jokhio grabbing private land in malir and asking money from land owners to relies those land from grabber this is truly 100% authentic complaint he is grabbing private land support of his MPA I don't want to mention name here but I can give all the prove police is also supporting land grabber

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, Jokhio is OSD now and you can submit complaint against him at Katchi Abadis or NAB. he is already facing lots of cases!

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