The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) says it has recovered N13 billion through “System Studies and Review of some selected Ministries, Departments and Agencies”.
A statement signed by ICPC’s Head of Public Enlightenment, Mike Sowe, stated that the Secretary of the Commission, Mr. Elvis Oglafa made the announcement in a paper he presented on Monday in Abuja at a “Roundtable on the Economic Transformation Agenda of the Federal Government.”
It said that the event was organised by the Office of the Special Adviser to the President on Performance Monitoring and Evaluation in conjunction with African Institute of Applied Economics.
The statement did not, however, indicate over what period the amount was recovered.
It described Nigeria’s overdependence on oil for its revenue as a major challenge in dealing with corruption in the country.
“The ICPC believes that there is not only enough evidence of corruption in the country as it is an impediment to Nigeria`s development. The option presented at this gathering is to help us fight it”.
While highlighting the problem of funding, the statement said that the Independent Commission Against Corruption of Hong Kong (ICAC) had an average of one investigator to 5,000 people and a budget of 12.30 dollars per capita to fight corruption.
“This is against ICPC’s staff strength of 534 in a nation of about 150 million people and per capita budget of 0.3 US cents to fight corruption,” it said.
It stated that the commission was, however, satisfied with the effort of the National Planning Commission to ensure that all the 36 states should establish Planning Commissions and Boards of Statistics.
It explained that the establishment of the boards would help reduce problems encountered with data collation being the tool for effective planning.
The statement said that the commission pledged its readiness to partner with the Office of the Special Adviser on Monitoring and Evaluation to ensure that corruption was eliminated to enhance development plans and objectives.