National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Justice (r) Javed Iqbal on Thursday said that we have recovered 14 billion rupees in the past four years.
Addressing a ceremony in Islamabad, the NAB chairman said had it not been for the anti-corruption watchdog, the recovery of such a huge sum was not possible.
He told that the bureau has opened inquiries against the most powerful people who were considered unapproachable. 56 billion rupees were recovered from housing societies, he added.
Justice Javed Iqbal further stated that NAB can only submit these recoveries to the national treasure. There is no law under which NAB distributes these recoveries anywhere else, he added.
He went on to add that the Bureau had taken action even against those people who were considered to be ‘untouchables’. “Out of total Rs14 billion, a huge amount was recovered from the owners of different housing societies,” the NAB chairman claimed.
He regretted that the concerned departments had turned a blind eye to the wrongdoings of these societies’ owners. He said he was amazed how people were hoodwinked by these people so easily.
“Admitted brochures are beautiful which tempt people to purchase plots in these societies,” Justice (r) Javed said, and asked people to use brain before doing so because fraudsters were everywhere.
He recalled that only a few years back when the NAB had asked the Sindh government about the wheat stocks, which had suddenly disappeared in the province, the provincial government made the excuse that they had been eaten by the mice.
He said the anti-graft watchdog even arrested those “wheat-eating rats” and recovered Rs20 billion from them when it initiated a probe against tonnes of missing wheat stocks in Sukkur. “When I asked, where all the wheat is? I was told that rats ate it,” said Justice Iqbal.
He said it was claimed that suspects were not punished in NAB cases. Instead of criticism for the sake of criticism, people should make constructive criticism, said the NAB chief. He clarified that in four years, the bureau punished 1,194 people.
The NAB chief said some people tried to kick up a storm in a teacup by asking where were the Rs541billion recovered by the accountability bureau. He said that NAB made direct and indirect recoveries of Rs541 billion in the last four years.
“During the last four years, the NAB took 200 disciplinary actions and made the biggest recoveries of its history. While, in 16 years previously, just 100 disciplinary actions were taken,” he said.
The NAB chief said that the anti-graft watchdog also had the record of the people who got their money back after it recovered it. He also revealed that Rs56 billion were recovered from different illegal societies and urged people to investigate before making any investment. “If the departments had done their work, people would not have been affected,” he said.
The chairman assured that NAB has all the record of the recovered amount.
