NAB on White Collar Criminals!
NAB Applying ill-Favoured Methods
For Dealing With White-Collar Crimes
ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) officials, applying the objectionable methods of dealing with white-collar crimes, lack sophisticated means of investigation and that is why it resorts to intimidating rather than legal manners, said a NAB spokesman here the other day.
Approached with terse impressions of businessmen and bureaucrats fearing pre-judgement and post-assessment on investment and decision-making under the law, a NAB spokesman, requesting not to be named, also gave out explanations on the arrest of former Pakistan cricket team captain, bureaucrat and a corporate activist, Javed Burki.
The News also spoke to Mrs Jameela Burki, who said: "I feel wrong because the state is supposed to protect rather than harassing law-abiding citizens. She added: “These people have taken another step to discourage upright people who are know for launching and managing the projects that serve the national interest and contribute toward rehabilitation of the economy”.
The spokesman was requested to comment on vastly entertained impression that by applying intimidating methods the NAB was hindering performance of government officials taking decisions in cases involving taxpayers appeals against the government.
Thousands of such cases lie undecided because of poor performance on the part of government officials who lack training and fear being charged for corruption if they decide in favour of taxpayers.
The NAB spokesman said: “It is true that intimidating methods discourage smooth performance. But if you go deeper you would find out that the CBR officials make mockery of the law. Why should they fear any intimidation or charges of corruption if they abide by their own act and perform under the laid down rules?”
He said: “Officials who make millions of dirty money come out with objections when they are arrested”.
When his attention was drawn to the fact that suspect officials, businessmen, or former bureaucrats lifted from their bedroom do have some basic citizen’s rights against being picked up without clear charges, he said “NAB does have some technical weaknesses which would be overcome in the process while dealing with the white-collar crimes.”
The NAB spokesman was requested to offer a comment on arrests made over the past three years ranging from that of former Chairman CBR, Mian Iqbal Farid to former Customs collector Mazhar A. Noorani.
Mr Farid, after being released from a 90-day captivity told this correspondent he would not reveal why he was arrested and why he was set free. But now, feeling a bit out of the trauma and having weathered the post-incarceration worries, he has opened up.
He told this corespondent that he was now planning to retrieve the money (Rs 10 million) the NAB officials had illegally received from him as a fine. He said though he was given a receipt of that fine, its very imposition was illegal. He did not have a clue on how he would get compensated for being given a bad repute in the society, the torture he had to undergo for being kept at incommunicado and the suffering of the family.
He said he was paid his full salary for the days he was kept in custody, and had recently been handed by NAB a letter which absolved him of all charges whatsoever, which in the first place never were against him.
Some of his friends told The News that he was asked by the NAB people to cooperage in substantiating certain corporate crime charges against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, and the fine imposed was only to give a cover to the illegal custody. He did not offer any comment on these issues, and sounded cautious, saying, “don’t give me new worries”.
More than 1000 CBR officials were suspended about two years ago and they later faced investigations on their holdings, spending, income sources etc by NAB even after being reinstated. Only about 35 of them are currently facing investigation now, while the rest have been cleared by the NAB, the agony and bad name brought to them by announcing their names through lists made public remaining an untold story.
When the NAB spokesman was asked to comment on this aspect, he said “you know corruption is there and corrupt officials are there. There should be some way of sopping corrupt practices and nabbing the corrupt”.
He did not give much weight to the argument that dealing with white-collar crimes in the manner NAB was dealing with it would in fact lead nowhere but to a state where investors and business managers would be decidedly shy of this country.
Mrs Jameela Burki, an Economics teacher at a local school, says, **“I have been wrong”. **She said "my daughter called from USA after Burki Sahib’s arrest, and she said, “I am deeply hurt. My father has been treated like a criminal. This pains me and I am tormented to see that men like him do not get the respect they deserve.”
Mrs Burki also said, “I feel helpless and agonised to see that after 35 years of unblemished service my husband has been picked up like a common criminal only on the basis of a corporate dispute”.
When asked if she felt terrorised, she said she did feel in a very dangerous situation. She said lifting of Mr Burki on whatever charges the NAB might be framing against him, was permissible under no law. He could have been put on ECL, to prevent him from fleeing the country, even if some incriminating evidence was in the offing, given that he was not being charged under any criminal sections of the law.
The News approached certain friends of Mr Burki, who spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing being “tracked down” if they sounded as standing by Mr Burki. One of them said "I know this man from the days when he had just started representing Pakistan as a member of the cricket team. “I have met him until recently, and watched his career as a bureaucrat. He could not be arrested in any kind of financial mishandling, or for defying his country in any manner”.
When Mrs Burki was told that The News did not support her husband’s case but sought certain confirmations on information gathered about Mr Burki, she said: “I and my family do not need any support as we stand with clean hands and dignity. Just tell people the truth, and let people of this country not suffer at the hands of the callous people who do not know what is good and what is not, for this country”.