The Assistant Director, Special Initiative on Continuous Audit, Johnson Oludare, has revealed that money siphoned from Government establishments, to the tune of N594, 089, 136, 242.41, was recovered between 2016 and 2018 by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission, ICPC.
Making the revelation at a North Central Town Hall Meeting in Minna, Niger State, organised by the African Centre for Media and Information Literacy with theme, ‘ Whistleblowing and Fight Against Corruption’. Oludare said the money was realised from Ministries, Parastatals and Agencies in the country.
He stated that the monies were recovered from two classes of individuals, namely, the classified political thieves and the unclassified thieves that connived with ministries, parastatals and agencies to steal public funds.
According to him, the N594 billion were monies recovered from 800 ex-employees that are still collecting salaries and benefits, 400 that are still in active service but collecting double salaries, while 1,200 staff connived with micro finance banks to steal from various MDAs between 2016 and 2018.
Oludare noted that the anti-corruption agency was confronted with a lot of challenges in the discharge of its duties. These include lack of legal frame work, inadequate funding, lack of public awareness as well as lack of proper organisation of the Whistleblowing unit, among others.
Jimoh Suleiman of the ICPC, in his address urged members of the public to speak out against corrupt practices by individuals in organisations to help investigation and prosecution of corrupt persons in the society.
“The problem sometimes is that corrupt practices are shrouded in secrecy and brought to the open when things go wrong among those involved,” he said.
He also called on the public to desist from malicious whistleblowing and ensure that information forwarded to the anti-corruption agency are true.
Also, the Niger State acting Director of National Orientation Agency, Yahaya Ibrahim Gbongbo, said the fight against corruption can be achieved through value reorientation of the public.
He explained that corruption had eroded the national core value of the nation,. hence the need for an aggressive sensitisation by the agency.
“Corruption is responsible for the slow pace of development. That is why, as a nation, the federal government and the legislature must come up with a strong, in corruptible legislation to fight it,” he added.