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From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
The Chairman of Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Professor Bolaji Owasanoye, has revealed how the Commission’s advisory to the government helped to block N42 billion personnel cost from being diverted.
He further disclosed that in 2020, the Commission issued another advisory to the Federal Ministry of Finance to restrain the sum of N147 billion through the issuance of a negative warrant as a result of surpluses found in MDAs personnel cost funds.
This was contained in a statement issued by Mrs Azuka Ogugua, ICPC spokesperson at the weekend.
According to the statement, the chairman made the disclosure while addressing the House of Representatives Hearing Committees on Anti-Corruption and Public Service Matters to Investigate the High Level of Corruption on Nominal Rolls of MDAs in the country.
He said: “In 2019 we reviewed 208 agencies that are funded from the public treasury, and we found out that there were huge surpluses of personnel costs after the payment of salaries and wages. Based on these findings, about N42 billion unspent surplus allocation was blocked based on our advisory to the government,” the chairman said.
“In 2020, the Commission advised the Hon. Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning to mop-up N147 billion through what is called the negative warrant to forestall further misapplication of excess funds that we found in MDAs account.”
Owasanoye added that the System Study and Review conducted by ICPC over the years had helped the Commission discover certain information that could help it carry out either preventive or enforcement measures, which would ultimately lead to reforms.
“Over the years, we had conducted system study and review pursuant to Section 6 b-d of the enabling act of the Commission and what we look at: the structure, the administrative, financial, and governance issues in the public sector agencies.
