ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has informed the Supreme Court that between January 2006 and June 2016, the bureau received an amount of Rs 20,373.296 million as a result of voluntary return (VR).
The bureau said on Saturday that the recovered amount was returned to the federal and provincial government, their subordinate departments -including corporations, autonomous and semi-autonomous bodies – as well as private persons without any deduction whatsoever.
In pursuance of the top court’s order in a suo motu case to examine the vires of Section 25 (a) of NAB Ordinance 1999, wherein the authority allows the accused to enter into voluntary return, NAB Additional Director (Coordination) Asim Lodhi through special prosecutor Nasir Mehmood Mughal submitted a ‘thick book’. According to date provided, the bureau disbursed an amount of Rs 17,872.905 million out of the total recovery during the last 10 years.
The thick book consists of record of the last 10 years, and includes details of those government employees, working in different sector, who entered into plea bargain with the NAB.
According to the report, an amount of Rs 1,012.809 million was recovered and deposited in the government coffers. Similarly, the Sindh government received Rs 1,519.295 million, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government remained a beneficiary of Rs 685.878 million, Punjab government got Rs 789.289 million, Balochistan government received Rs 251.596 million, and the Gilgit-Baltistan government received Rs 8.133 million recovered through the VR.
Likewise, other entities, including corporations, received Rs 11,984.572 million, recovered from the accused persons through the VR scheme, while Rs 1,621.331 million were deposited in the federal consolidated account.
The report further stated that the remaining amount of Rs 2,500.391 million was yet to be disbursed after finalisation of cases and verification of claims.
Similarly, Rs 37.95 million were recovered from 37 employees of the provincial and federal governments working in Lahore, while an amount of Rs 1402.972 million was recovered from 449 employees of the federal and provincial governments in Karachi. Moreover, Rs 692.914 million were recovered from 1,006 employees in KP, Rs 188.529 million from 106 employees in Balochistan, Rs 188.529 million from 86 employees in Rawalpindi, Rs 96.153 million from 313 employees in Sukkur, Rs 41.08 million from 11 employees in Multan and Rs 2,648.979 million from 2008 employees in other parts of the country.
The report further stated that a revised list of 196 federal and 1,812 provincial government employees had been shared with the Establishment Division and all the chief secretaries of the provinces. It stated that the amount recovered from 2008 government employees was 11 percent of the total recovery.
The NAB official told the court that voluntary return was accepted in cases of cheating public at large, like the case of Double Shah, Modarba Scams and Private Housing Schemes.
He said that the scheme also helps the process of recovery from accused persons against whom prosecutable evidence is lacking.