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The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other
Related Offences Commission (ICPC) is set to tackle the padding of personnel
costs in government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
Crimefacts.news reports that the Commission has
accordingly charged MDAs to go back and fix infractions and remove
incriminating items in their budgets.
Chairman of the Commission, Professor Bolaji
Owasanoye, made this known at a one-day stakeholders’ meeting held with
officials of Federal Tertiary Teaching Hospitals, Medical Centres; Permanent
Secretaries and representatives of the Budget Office at the ICPC headquarters
in Abuja recently.
Owasanoye said, “The essence of the meeting
is to proffer solution to all infractions from the institutions to block
loopholes in the system. We don’t take pleasure in embarrassing anyone. Our
duty is to help government retain money that she was losing. But we will not
hesitate to take the enforcement option when that becomes necessary. In any
case, the Commission has mapped out strategies it will employ to make padding
of personnel costs by MDAs a thing of the past”.
He advised that the agencies should go back
and remove every infraction or padding that may have been inserted into their
2020 budget, saying that it would help clean-up personnel payroll and reduce
costs for government.
The ICPC Chairman added that the Commission
was not “interested in witch-hunting anybody”; rather, all that it was doing
was aimed at ensuring institutions of government adhere to the guiding
principles of the law.
Owasanoye further directed that all the
agencies should submit their actual nominal rolls to the Budget Office and the
Accountant General’s Office, while also sending a copy to the Commission.
On his part, the Permanent Secretary, Special
Duties, of the Federal Ministry of Finance, Dr. M.K. Dikko, reiterated the
commitment of the ministry to the fight against corruption.
He assured that the MDAs would cooperate with
the Commission to help reduce their bloated personnel costs which had become a
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