The National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, arranged a comprehensive briefing session on land revenue matters, responsibilities of revenue authorities and legal and administrative framework governing the leasing of state land in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. A communication said on Thursday the session was attended virtually via zoom by NAB Chairman Lt Gen (retd) Nazir Ahmed. Prosecutor General Accountability Syed Ihtesham Qadir Shah and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Secretary Shahab Ali Shah attended the gathering in person.
NAB Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Director General Naveed Haider Zahid said that the NAB chairman had established the Land Directorate in 2025 to combat usurpation, illegal allotment and fraudulent transfer of state assets. He said 2.98 million acres of land had been retrieved nationwide, amounting to Rs5.976 trillion in 2025, while substantial recovery of state land, covering millions of acres, was being made in 2026. The official said that in replicating the initiative in KP, major discrepancies were observed in the form of data gaps between the records maintained by deputy commissioners and those of various departments, due to the lack of a central repository for state land records.
He said that to bridge this gap, NAB KP had developed the State Land Management System (SLMS), which compiles all provincial state land records into a single-click, searchable database. A detailed presentation on "Legal Framework of Land Revenue Matters in KP: Responsibilities and Obligations of Revenue and Concerned Departments" was delivered by Ahmed Ali Zafar, Adviser to the NAB Chairman on Land Matters. DG (Operations), NAB, Amjad Majeed Aulakh, presented the findings of NAB's study on land leasing in KP.
KP Chief Secretary Shahab Ali Shah appreciated the initiative and observed that such collaborative engagements could contribute to improving the system for retrieval and protection of state land. The NAB chairman expressed satisfaction over the collaboration between NAB and the civil administration of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, stating that coordinated institutional efforts could help unlock the economic and public value of state land resources. He emphasised that NAB, in collaboration with the KP administration, could contribute to strengthening institutional systems and addressing governance gaps affecting the effective and lawful management of public resources.
The NAB chairman stressed that government functionaries must exercise their authority strictly within the framework of the law and ensure the implementation of all relevant statutory and legal provisions.