The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) disclosed yesterday that it uncovered the sum of N2.67billion payment made to some federal colleges for school feeding during COVID-19 lockdown which ended up in personal accounts.
The chairman of ICPC, Prof Bolaji Owasanoye, made the disclosure in his keynote address at the Commission’s 2nd National Summit on
Diminishing Corruption with the theme, “Together Against Corruption and Launch of the National Ethics and Integrity Policy”, at the presidential villa.
He also said the commission discovered over N2.5billion appropriated by a senior civil servant in the ministry of Agriculture, who is now deceased, for himself and cronies.
Owasanoye also listed other assets recovered in the ministry to include 18 buildings, 12 business premises, and 25 plots of land.
He said under Open Treasury Portal review carried out between January to August 15, 2020, out of 268 ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), 72 of them had cumulative infractions of N90million.
According to him, while 33 MDAs tendered explanations that N4.1 billion was transferred to sub-TSA, N4.2 billion paid to individuals had no satisfactory explanations.
He said, “We observed that transfers to sub-TSA were to prevent disbursement from being monitored. Nevertheless, we discovered payments to some federal colleges for school feeding in the sum of N2.67 billion during lockdown when the children are not in school, and some of the money ended up in personal accounts. We have commenced
investigations into these finding.”
The ICPC chairman further explained that under its 2020 constituency and executive projects tracking initiative, 722 projects with a threshold of N100million (490 ZiP and 232 executive projects) were tracked across 16 states.
He noted that a number of projects described as ongoing in the budget were found to be new projects that ought to have been excluded in order to enable government complete exiting projects.
The ICPC boss added that the commission also found that uncompleted projects sponsored by legislators who do not return get abandoned to the loss of the community and the state.
He said the commission also uncovered the use of companies owned by sponsor’s friends or relatives or companies belonging to civil servants in implementing MDAs to execute projects which are abandoned or poorly performed, conspiracy between legislative aides of sponsors and implementing MDAs and contractors to undermine the quality of the project without knowledge of the sponsor, vague project description that result in the diversion of funds by implementing MDAs or project sponsor with collusion of contractors and absence of community ownership of project because they were not consulted or largely ignorant of projects allocated to them.
Owasanoye said in the education sector, 78 MDAs were reviewed and common cases of misuse of funds were uncovered.
He listed some of the discoveries include life payment of bulk sums to individuals/staff accounts, including project funds; non-deductions/remittance of taxes and IGR; payments of unapproved allowances, bulk payment to microfinance banks, payment of arrears of salary and other allowances of previous years from the 2020 budget,
payment of salary advance to staff, under-deduction of PAYE and payment of promotion arrears due to surplus in Personnel Cost, abuse and granting of cash advances above the approved threshold and
irregular payment of allowances to principal officers.
On asset recovery, Owasanoye said the commission recovered N16 billion from the Ministry of Agriculture, paid into individual accounts for non-official purposes.
He noted that also covered were payments to Agric contractors for no job done or overpayment for jobs done, appropriation of projects to private farms of senior civil servants of the ministry. It also discovered N2.5 billion appropriated by an individual now deceased for himself and cronies.
He said, “We have restrained or recovered by administrative or court interim and final orders assets above N3 billion facilitated recovery of $173,000 by the whistleblower unit of FMFB&P from an erring oil company, retrained £160,000 in a UK-bank in an ongoing interim forfeiture. These figures exclude the quantum of recoveries on return or contractors to site as a result of projects tracking initiatives.
“It should, however, be noted that some of these assets are subjected to ongoing cases and where suspects proved their cases physical or liquid assets will be released in accordance with laid down laws, guidelines
or court directives.”
PMB Launches National Ethics, Integrity Policy
Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday launched the National Ethics and Integrity Policy with a call on the judiciary to undertake reforms that would fast-rack delivery of justice for the common good.
Buhari while speaking at the ICPC summit said, “We need to deploy resources to address our common needs rather than the greed of a callous few. We need a corruption-free public sector to achieve this transformation; we need a judicial system that dispenses justice without undue delay and technicality.
“We need laws and legal system to be reformed to deliver justice to every citizen without regard to status and finally, we need ethical re-orientation of the people to achieve this goal. When we work together against corruption, we can defeat it.”
President Buhari also declared that the National Ethics and Integrity Policy “projects government’s aspiration for rediscovery of our cherished traditional ethical values of honesty, integrity, hard-work, truth and justice, unity, faith, and consideration for one another irrespective of status or background.
“Corruption and corruptive tendencies are abhorrent to these core ethical values,” he added.
Recalling when he was a military head of state, Buhari said, “I fought corruption headlong and held public officers who abused their office or misused public funds to account. Furthermore, I introduced the War Against Indiscipline (WAI), one of whose cardinal objectives was the promotion of our cherished culture of ethical conduct, integrity and
hard work.
“I recognised in 1984 as I do even more now that corruption poses a clear danger to Nigeria, so, we cannot relent in efforts to eradicate it from our society. As I have often reminded Nigerians, ‘if we do not kill corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria.”
He, however, reiterated his belief that progress could only be achieved in the delivery of dividends for the citizenry when the arms and tiers of government work together.
The president continued: “I believe that it is when the three arms and the three levels of government work together that government will be enabled to serve the country. We will also see the positive impact of our efforts reaching all and sundry across the country.”
“Bearing this critical factor in mind, I am happy that the theme of this year’s Summit by ICPC is, TOGETHER AGAINST CORRUPTION. I am aware that this theme derives from the theme of our 60th anniversary celebration. Together as a nation, as a people, the three arms and three tiers of government working together, we can attack corruption and realize the vast potentials of our country.”
He further emphasised that enlightening Nigerians on preventive measures remained the key component in fighting corruption and commends ICPC in this regard.
He stated: “I wish to reiterate the role of preventive measures, public education and enlightenment against corruption. This government through the Open Treasury initiative, TSA, GIFMIS, BVN, and many more is implementing different corruption prevention measures to track and retain government revenue for the use of the people.
“I commend the ICPC for its enforcement and prevention measures including system review of capital and personnel budget, regular analysis of the Open Treasury platform, enforcement action against diversion and mismanagement of public funds, working with the Federal Inland Revenue Service to increase the number of companies and persons within the tax net, tracking of constituency project budget
utilisation for the benefit of ordinary Nigerians and its monitoring of implementation of the budget by the Executive in key sectors like Agriculture sector.”
Apart from presenting publications by the commission, President Buhari
also commended and presented awards to Opeyemi Peter Adeboye, Chikezie Favour and Matilda Daniels winners of the ICPC Youth Music and Essay Competitions on the promotion of anti-corruption values as well as the 2020 Public Service Integrity Awardees; CSP Francis Osagie Erhabor of the Nigeria Police and Hamza Adamu Buwai of the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade & Investment who demonstrated the will to look away from graft and corruption.
He said, “I congratulate all the awardees. Even though COVID-19 has not permitted the kind of ceremony that you deserve, Nigeria is proud of you. You are a pride to your families, institutions and to Nigeria.”