Courts doing self-assessment to check corruption within
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
President Muhammadu Buhari has promised to punish illegal recruiters into the public service and heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) who fraudulently present new projects as ongoing ones to inflate their budgets.
Buhari made the pledge in Abuja at the Summit on Diminishing Corruption, at which Chief Justice Tanko Muhammad disclosed that 1,144 corruption and financial crime perpetrators were convicted in court between January 2 and November 14.
“We reduced the cost of governance by maintaining our promise to complete abandoned or ongoing projects commenced by previous administrations and have ensured that MDAs do not put forward new capital projects at the expense of ongoing projects,” Buhari said, reported by The PUNCH.
“Government has, however, noted from the activities of the ICPC [Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission] that some MDAs have devised the fraudulent practice of presenting new projects as ongoing projects.
“Necessary action and sanctions will continue against the heads of such errant MDAs. I am confident that ICPC will continue to maintain the vigilance required of her by the ICPC Act in this regard.”
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Judiciary doing self assessment
Muhammad said: “We have put in place a robust mechanism of introspecting periodically to do a self-assessment to see those areas where corruption could surreptitiously creep into the system and quickly nip it in the bud from the outset.
“The National Judicial Council has been carrying out regular disciplinary actions against erring judicial officers to effectively tame the monster within the system.
“Worried by the delays associated with the trial of criminal cases by our courts, particularly those relating to corruption and financial crimes, we decided to set up the Corruption and Financial Crime Cases Trial Monitoring Committee in 2018, with Justice Suleiman Galadima, a retired Justice of the Supreme Court, as Chairman.”
Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, declared that Abuja is “highly worried” that about 60 per cent of overhead expenditure in three years (2012-2014) was spent on travels, maintenance, local and international training, welfare, office stationery/consumables, and honoraria, among others.
“Actual MDAs recurrent spending is still on the rise, viz from N3.61tn in 2015 to N5.26tn in 2018 and N7.91tn in 2020,” he said, quoting Budget Office data.
Fraud increases cost of governance
ICPC Chairman Bolaji Owasanoye decried the rising cost of governance, blaming it on – among others – procurement fraud, and illegal recruitment and unilateral increases in wages by MDAs, including the Labour and Employment Ministry.
Said he: “ICPC investigation of some cases of illegal recruitment forwarded to us by the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation has so far implicated the Ministry of Labour and the University College Hospital Ibadan and several corrupt staff of other MDAs at a lower level.
“This abuse of power is consummated with the complicity of compromised elements in IPPIS. These cases are currently under investigation.”
At another level, he added, some public officials corruptly employ people, issue them fake letters of employment, enrol them on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) and post them to MDAs.
He said the ICPC is tracking at least 1,083 projects countrywide, except Borno and Zamfara where there are security challenges.
“We have so far initiated enforcement actions against 67 contractors and forced them back to site and ensured completion of 966 projects worth N310bn, some of which were hitherto abandoned.
“Other challenges relate to duplication of projects in the budget. ICPC’s review found that 257 projects amounting to N20.138bn were duplicated in the 2021 budget, leading us to submit an advisory to the HMF which was promptly actioned by the minister to prevent abuse.”
Ngige denies involvement in illegal recruitment
Labour and Employment Minister Chris Ngige told The PUNCH that he was the one who initiated an investigation when he discovered the employment racket in his ministry.
His words: “It’s an ongoing investigation initiated by me. They committed the fraud between May 29, 2019 and August 2019 when I was temporarily away as minister.
“I raised the alarm in Federal Executive Council necessitating the Head of Service of the Federation to do preliminary investigations and write ICPC after the internal ministry investigation committee set up by me was stalled by the then Permanent Secretary.
“ICPC should conclude investigation of 2019 by now, instead of making it look like a new development.”
