ISLAMABAD: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry on Wednesday visited the KP Regional Bureau to review its performance on the basis of annual inspection conducted by the Chairman’s Inspection and Monitoring Team (CI&MT). The inspection team was deputed to conduct annual inspection of KP Regional Bureau for the year 2016. The annual inspection was carried out from February 6-8, 2017 in order to review and evaluate the performance of the bureau on the basis of the newly introduced Partly Quantified Grading System (PQGS). A senior CI&MT member, along with his team, conducted the said annual inspection for the year 2016. He gave a detailed briefing to the NAB Chairman on the annual inspection and highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of the KP Regional Bureau. He informed that on the directives of Qamar Zaman Chaudhry, the PQGS had been devised in 2014. Under this system, the performance of all NAB regional bureaus was being conducted since 2014 at a uniform criteria. The NAB chairman directed CI&MT to conduct annual inspection of all regional bureaus regarding their performance of 2016, which started from January 2017. Annual inspection of Karachi, Rawalpindi, Sukkur and Lahore had been conducted. The annual inspection of NAB KP was carried out from February 6-8. On Wednesday, the NAB chairman directed the team to give final presentation about the performance of NAB KP. The senior member informed the chairman in his presentation that in 2016, NAB KP received 3,815 complaints; all were processed according to law. He said that the bureau verified 237 of 265 complaints received. Moreover, out of 264 inquiries, the bureau completed 159, whereas out of 93 investigations, the NAB KP completed 62 investigations on merit. During 2016, NAB KP arrested 101 corrupt persons and filed 57 references, he said, adding that the conviction ratio was about 81.81 percent. During 2016, NAB KP recovered Rs 3,174.679 million, he said. The NAB chairman said that NAB KP was a trendsetter region. He appreciated NAB KP for continuously maintaining its standard in all the aspects of accountability and administration. He said that corruption was the mother of all evils. “The NAB is committed to eradicating corruption by adopting zero tolerance policy, as corruption creates hurdles in development and deprives people of their due right.” He said that the NAB is Pakistan’s apex anti-corruption organisation, which chalked out a proactive anti-corruption strategy to elimination corruption through a holistic approach of awareness, prevention and enforcement. He said that the NAB operates under the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999 which is extended to all of Pakistan, including FATA and Gilgit-Baltistan. The NAB has its headquarters in Islamabad, while it has eight regional bureaus located in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta, Sukkur, Multan, Gilgit-Baltistan and Rawalpindi. The CI&MT, in view of the assessed annual performance based on evaluation under the partly quantified grading system prepared by the team, graded NAB KP’s performance “outstanding/excellent”, with the operational efficiency index (OEI) standing at 94.80 percent. Qamar Zaman Chaudhry said that the KP Regional Bureau was very important, as it had played a prominent role in contributing towards the overall performance of the NAB. He appreciated the performance of the NAB KP under the supervision of NAB KP Director General Maj (r) Shahzad Saleem. He directed all officers of the NAB KP to double their efforts and work more vigilantly and diligently in order to eradicate corruption and corrupt practices. He said that the hard work done by all wings of the NAB KP was commended, as the bureau was working in an atmosphere of renewed energy and dynamism, where fight against corruption was being taken as a national duty. He said that the CI&MT had done a very good work.