LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Lahore said on Thursday it had introduced thousands of bodies at school, college and university levels to help build students character.

At a seminar held at Alhamra in connection with the International Anticorruption Day, NAB Lahore Director General Shahzad Saleem said the bureau had taken serious steps to help eradicate corruption in society.

`Unemployment is one of the major issues in our country and because of that a number of people are compelled to commit crimes, he said. He said the conviction ratio in NAB cases stood at 76 percent while in other anti-corruption bodies it was less than 10pc.

Commenting on plea bargain law, the DG said `The bureau is not a laundry for the corrupt and plea bargain does not mean forgiveness`.

He said without any solid proof, NAB could not satisfy courts in the plea bargain cases, adding that the bureauhad sofarrecovered Rs290 billion from the corrupt and deposited the amount in the national exchequer.