The Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC) has decried poor collaboration especially in the area of information sharing among anti-corruption and security agencies, saying it was weakening the fight against corruption in Nigeria.
Itsay Sagay, the chairman PACAC said the platform for information and intelligence sharing needs to be built on as it had been observed that information at the disposal of various intelligence units in the country is not shared in a systematic and pragmatic manner to assist the fight against corruption and other related security threats.
Sagay said this on Tuesday at a one-day workshop on strengthening anti-corruption agenda by PACAC in collaboration with Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) and supported by the MacArthur Foundation in Abuja.
According to him, corruption is the reason for the massive unemployment, unequipped clinics, wretches schools, bad roads and consequently the cause of deaths on roads, hospitals, kidnapping, robbery amongst others.
The PACAC chairman recalled the 2007 and 2013 looting by public officials and businessmen which came to N1.35 trillion.
“One-third of the stolen funds could have provided 635.18kilometre of roads, 36 ultra-modern hospitals per state, 183 schools, educated 3,974 children from primary to tertiary level at 25.24 million per child and built 20,062 units of 2-bedroom houses,” he said.
He reiterated the call on the National Assembly to pass an intelligence reform bill into law to provide an Inter-Agency Coordinating Group (IACG) platform for the sharing of corruption, terrorism and other serious crimes intelligence.
“This platform will engender partnerships among all levels of government involved in the fight against corruption and other related offences,” he said.
Sagay also recommended that whistleblowing be strengthened. He said there should be a graduated scale of reward for a maximum of 5 percent for relatively small recoveries to 0.5 percent for very large recoveries.
He however harped on the fact that the fight against corruption is a collaborative effort that involves the participation of every Nigerian down to the grassroots level and should not be left for ant-graft agencies alone.
Boss Mustapha, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, also speaking, said that despite successes recorded in the anti-corruption war there was still much to be done. He said lingering corrupt acts are coordinated with complicity from public officials.
The SGF who was represented by the permanent secretary, OSGF, Amina Bello, therefore tasked participants at the session to analyse the role of the Audit Departments and Units in aiding and abetting corruption in MDAs.
He tasked the Office of the Auditor-General to come up with policies to empower auditors to halt payments that are in breach of the procurement Act, financial regulations, and other laws.
“The fight against corruption will gain traction if in all cases involving the prosecution of individuals and corporate entities, the auditors that sanctioned such payments should be joined in trial of such cases by the prosecution,” he said.
The chairman, Senate Committee on Anti-corruption and Financial crimes, Suleman Abdulkadir on his part assured that the POCA Bill which will aid the anti-corruption fight will be given expedient action.
He also said the Senate through the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was also reviewing other anti-corruption legislation.
