ISLAMABAD, Nov 8: As many as 294 inquiries and investigations in various cases of corruption have been pending with the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for want of staff for the last two years.

In its written reply in Senate, the Ministry for Law, Justice and Human Rights did try to convince the Senate the inquiries were in progress and if necessary would be upgraded by converting them into investigations.

Similarly, the Ministry said, the investigations pending in NAB were also in progress at various stages of completion.

To a question asked by Senator Mohammad Talha Mehmood, theMinistry for Law, Justice and Human Rights explained that the reasons for not finalizing these cases so far were that in certain instances, timeline had been extended due to peculiar circumstances.

The ministry said that cases which involved longer time generally required information from foreign sources or were based on complex financial transactions.

The ministry claimed that the process of inquiries and investigations was regulated by Standing Operating Procedures and that the NAB endeavoured to complete within the specifled time spans.

However, finalising inquiries involving white collar crimes and their conversions into investigations was a continuous and time-consuming process.It explained how a limited human resource was handling, at present, enforcement operations of the National Accountability Bureau such as conducting inquiries, investigations and references causing delays in finalisation of ongoing inquiries and investigations.

However, the ministry maintained, the induction of new investigation officers who had completed their training in October 2013 would likely to expedite the cases.

It claimed that the existing inquiries and investigations would be finalised in the shortest time.

To date, the National Accountability Bureau had recovered Rs16.785 billion on account of corruption and corrupt practices, on account of bank default and court fines im-posed in NAB cases.

It also explained how the employees of NAB were not directly paid any amount out of the recoveries.

Nonetheless, the Finance Division in a letter on July 2000, had allowed a percentage of NAB share to be claimed from the government for operational activities of the investigating bureau as well as for welfare measures of its employees, which were utilised under recovery and rewards rules, which was approved by the president in consultation with the chief justice.

An amount of Rs155 million was paid to NAB employees during 20112012 and 2012-2013, which was only one per cent of the amount recovered by NAB, which was as high as Rs16.785 billion in the periods.