By joshua 
—– Want Other Means of Monitoring Budget Implementation
—— Says Need to hold Govt Accountable for Poor Budget Implementation vital.
By. Ikhili Ebalu, Benin City
The Resident Anti-corruption Commissioner of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission,(ICPC), in Edo/Delta States, Barr. Yusuf Olatunji has called for the collaboration of all stakeholders in the fight against corruption to reduce the incidences of corruption in the nation’s body polity.
The Resident Commissioner made the call at an anti-corruption engagement with communities, Civil Societies Organisations (CSOs), labour and trade unions to deepen accountability and efforts on budget and abandoned projects organised by Peering Advocacy and Advancement Centre in Africa, (PAACA) held Thursday, 1 July at Randekhi Royal Hotel, Benin City.
The Resident Commissioner who was represented by the second in command in Edo/Delta States, Eze Nwafor urged the stakeholders to maintain a high standard of ethical and moral conduct in their engagement with government agencies.
“I have always maintained that for a successful was against corruption, the stakeholders must not only own the fight but also have sound ethical and moral conducts blended with accountability and transparency in all their dealings with the public.”
While enumerating the effects of corruption on the well being of Nigerians, the ICPC Commissioner listed what the ICPC is doing to reduce corruption in the realisation that preventing the menance with institutional mechanisms is better than seeking punishment for offenders.
“Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) have always believed in the ancient saying, ‘Prevention is better than cure’, hence its strong input in the preventive measures as enshrined in Act 2000.
“ICPC had initiated many policies and programmes aimed at preventing corruption from taking place at all. These include Anti-corruption and Transparency Monitoring Units in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), the National Anti-corruption Coalition Volunteer Corps, (NAVC), National Anti-corruption Coalition (NACC), Integrity Education/ Integrity Outreach, First Imitative (IFI), Local Government Integrity Initiative (LG11) and currently National Ethics and Integrity Policy.
“The beauty of National Ethics and Integrity Policy is that it is meant to be peoples driven to ensure success. The policy contains features such as Consequence Management Template and the Sustainability, Monitoring and Evaluation Mechanisms put in place to ensure that the policy stands the test of time.”
In his opening remarks, the Executive Director of PAACA, Ezenwa Nwagwu urge CSOs to employ new approaches in engaging government agencies and budget monitoring adding that they can’t continue to do the same thing every time and expect different result.
While pointing out that perpetrators of corrupt practices are now dynamic in carrying out their neferous activities, Nwagwu enumerated the communities who bear the consequences, said of corruption to include the community of one’s nativity, the community where one resides, the the community you work and the community of the affected.
“We must shift from the usual practice and this is why we are here. We must adopt other means of monitoring our budget and its implementation at all levels of government so that we can equip ourselves with the needed information and data and ask questions where necessary. We have to monitor ongoing and abandoned projects in our states and ask questions where necessary.
“And by doing this, we must first have the necessary documents that have to do with our state, communities. People in our different communities, I mean the rural dwellers, must hold government accountable on projects situated in our communities. And this is why we did not go to the cities to pick participants but from communities in the rural areas, because the people at the rural areas are more affected. By doing this we can hold government, contractors accountable on project execution,” he said.
The Executive Director who happens to be the Converner, ‘Say no Campaign’ said stakeholders need to adopt others means of solving the nation’s problem rather than the usual confrontation which according to him has not yeilded the needed result.
While describing the meeting as result oriented, Comrade Nwagwu noted that in addressing Nigerian corruption challenges and the need to hold public office holders accountable, there was need for a new thinking, stressing that ignorant in the side of members of the public has rather worsen corruption in the system.
“We must shift from the usual practice and this is why we are here. We must adopt other means of monitoring our budget and its implementation at all levels of government so that we can equip ourselves with the needed information and data and ask questions where necessary. We have to monitor ongoing and abandoned projects in our states and ask questions where necessary.
“And by doing this, we must first have the necessary documents that have to do with our state, communitte. People in our different communities, I mean the rural dwellers, must hold government accountable on projects situated in our communities. And this is why we did not go to the cities to pick participants but from communitie in the rural areas, because the people at the rural areas are more affected. By doing this we can hold government, contractors accountable on project execution,” he said
Participants were drawn from the three Senatorial District of the state and were guided on how to monitor budget implementation and how to track down ongoing and abandoned projects in the state.End.