THE Senate President, Bukola Saraki, on Monday attributed the
inability of some state governors to meet their obligations to their
workers and the entire citizens to corruption. He noted that corruption
had assumed a worrisome dimension in the country.
Saraki stated this when the Chairman of the Independent Corrupt
Practices Commission, Mr. Ekpo Nta, led top officials of his agency to
pay him a courtesy visit.
The Senate President lamented that the embarrassing level of
corruption in the country had taken a dangerous trend to the extent that
government at the three tiers of government were finding it difficult
to pay salaries and provide basic social infrastructure.
He said, “The 8th Senate has a position on zero tolerance for
corruption. We want to make it a priority. For us, we have realised that
it is truly endangering the entire system. It is affecting our national
development.
“The
cost of corruption on our national life goes beyond financial cost. You
see it in states now, they cannot pay salaries, you see it in the state
of our schools and the impact on our education. You see it in the state
of our health and impact on the issue of maternity, and child
mortality. You see it in the ever-increasing cost of governance and the
failure of our public institutions and infrastructure.
“All of us when we went out to campaign, one of the messages coming
to us from Nigerians was we have to fight corruption and as people
representing Nigerians, we must listen to that and we have taken it upon
ourselves, that one of our deliverables is to bring an end to this and
begin to tame this thing called corruption…
“For the Eight Senate, making the fight against corruption a priority
is a must and we are committed to that. Our goal is to work with you to
reduce significantly the level of corruption in this country.”
He pledged that the Eight Senate would work closely with the ICPC and other anti-graft agencies to fight the scourge.
Saraki said, “There are things we ought to do that would help
prevention especially among the professionals. Bankers who notice that
the account of an assistant director is running into billions of naira
should have a way of blowing the whistle. We have to be creative to
bring everybody along.”
The ICPC boss said the Act that established the agency was enacted in
2000, noting that was the first Act of parliament that addressed
corruption directly and that the United Nations convention against
corruption came four years later in 2004.
He noted that the issue of corruption in the country had always been
there not that it was impressed upon the country by the international community.
He said, “We knew our problems and we have started addressing them
long ago. The beauty of the legislation is that it stipulates for
enforcement, prevention, public enlightenment and mass mobilisation
against corruption.
“The Strategic Action Plan 2012 to 2017 was being followed to achieve
measurable growth activities. We concentrate on the prevention aspect
to rebuild the institutional structures that would help fight the aspect
of corruption and several studies had shown that we are on the right
track.
“What do I expect for the senators and the ICPC. First you need to do
a lot of oversight functions. In the past some committees had sent
result of their oversight functions and we have successfully gone into
criminal investigations.
“For instance in the past, through oversight we got to know companies
that did not pay taxes that were due and we made substantial
recoveries.
“The whistle-blowers Bill if successfully passed into law will
further help because we face a lot of problems with people who blow the
whistle because sometimes their lives are threatened.
“Ideally in a country like this we should have a safe houses where we
can take such people to, to protect them from harm. My office will
always be ready to work on issues of national interest.”
(Punch)
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