ICPC calls for review of procurement policies to curb corruption

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has called for a review of public procurement policies to reduce corrupt practices in the country.

Bolaji Owasanoye, ICPC chairman, said this on Friday at the national policy dialogue on corruption and insecurity in Nigeria convened by the commission.

Owasanoye said the objective of the dialogue was to broaden stakeholders’ thinking on causative factors, enabling factors and policy gaps that weaken the country’s capacity to decisively and conclusively eradicate insecurity from within her borders.

He said ICPC’s research and findings showed that public sector corruption, directly and indirectly, enables insecurity and can sometimes complement it.

He added that the commission is currently investigating numerous cases of job racketeering in the security sector as well as military contracts spending.

Quoting data from the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), the ICPC chairman said that about $15 billion had been squandered through fraudulent arms procurement deals in the last 20 years in the country.

“Recently, ICPC arrested a military contractor that received over a period of less than ten years cumulative sum of about N6 billion from the Nigerian Army in suspicious circumstances and in violation of extant legislation,” he said.

“The commission’s recovery of huge cash sums in local and foreign currencies, luxury cars, customized mobile phones, designer watches including three Rolexes, as well as property documents from the premises of the contractor underscore the corruption that often attend military procurement.

“Some former military and security personnel are being investigated by ICPC and our sister agency for embezzlement of funds allocated to security.

“Another case under investigation is theft of part of special intervention fund approved for security operations by some civil servants in the line ministry who transferred about N1 billion to 4 shell companies.

“A special investigative team under the leadership of NSA and ICPC recovered some of the diverted assets, including state of the art building located in Abuja and over N220 million cash. Investigation in this matter is still ongoing.

“The newly established police special intervention framework designed to eliminate underfunding of the police, the Police Trust Fund, is already under ICPC investigation for abuse, fund diversion bogus, questionable welfare packaging that is not for the police who are the beneficiaries of the fund and sundry corrupt practices.”

Owasanoye said the commission is collaborating with other anti-corruption agencies to investigate misappropriation of funds in defence sector procurement practices.

“While ICPC and EFCC are investigating some of these anomalies, our efforts will not yield much without proactive prevention measures and a review of extant procurement practices,” he added.

“ICPC in furtherance of its statutory mandate to prevent corruption by review of the systems, processes and practices of agencies of government and to direct improvement where they predispose to corruption has through its research and training arm convened this policy dialogue.”