Traders vilifying NAB in front of COAS, unjust: Chairman NAB

Chairman NAB, Javed Iqbal says allegations leveled by traders on National Accountability Bureau (NAB) are unjustified.

Addressing a presser in Islamabad on Sunday morning, the Chairman said, NAB will never take unfriendly steps against businessmen.

Iqbal said that he was shocked when he learnt that one individual had expressed his reservations about NAB in the much-talked-about meeting between Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa and some of Pakistan’s most powerful business tycoons on Wednesday.

However, the NAB chairman said that a few days prior, the same individual had written a letter to the bureau in which he had applauded its services.

Iqbal said that he would not name the businessman as he didn’t want to affect anyone’s image, but said that if the individual had reservations he should have shared them with the bureau.

The NAB chairman added that not just one business tycoon, but at least three, had written letters to the bureau in which they praised it.

He said that he would furnish the said letters if needed be. Iqbal expressed his gratitude to them for praising NAB as well as for expressing their reservations.

“Every person or institution can make lapses,” he said, adding that God had given humans intelligence in order to minimise the lapses.

The NAB chairman added that a four-member committee has been formed, the mandate for which is being determined. He said that it could be seen as an “advisory” institution that would discuss the problems of the business community and find solutions to them.

He said we are struggling to provide good environment to businessmen in the country.

“The bureau did not formulate business policies, measures taken thus far for the betterment of business community.”

Removing the smokescreen from the sky, the Chairman NAB said he never demanded arbitrary authority.

He concluded that the anti-graft watchdog was working independently and within the law.

Chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Justice retd. Javed Iqbal addressing a press conference said that the institute was working diligently to rid the country from the menace of corruption, ARY News reported on Thursday (yesterday).

Defending the watchdog’s actions in the recent past, Iqbal said NAB has never liked to overstep its jurisdiction and that the reason for it being ‘overactive’ was because the authority had received a lot of money laundering cases from the country’s top court.