General News
THE minister of finance, budget, and national planning, Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, has requested the assistance of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, to help in reducing the high cost of governance in the public sector.
She said this at a Policy Dialogue on Corruption and Cost of Governance in Nigeria organized by the Anti-Corruption Academy of Nigeria, ACAN, the training, and research arm of ICPC at the Commission’s headquarters in Abuja.
Ahmed, in her address, revealed that the need for the reduction of cost of governance was in compliance with the directive by President Muhammadu Buhari, to review government payroll.
In her words, “while working to increase revenue, we will work to reduce the high cost of governance and I am glad that ICPC is taking this initiative as its natural mandate is to prevent corruption”.
The minister stressed that while it was important to enforce the laws prohibiting corruption, the second most important thing was to prevent corruption from happening.
She revealed that her ministry had designed a strategic revenue initiative that was aimed at solving the problem of revenue deficiency by expanding revenue sources, and also reducing cost by alternating processes that give room for corruption such as IPPIS, GIFMIS.
She also stated that a transparency portal had been launched to provide access to citizens to view transactions from agencies and monitor how the government was performing its transactions.
Ahmed said she would work with relevant agencies of government to cut down on unnecessary expenditures so that limited resources can be used for important projects.
In his opening address, the ICPC Chairman, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, said that the high cost of governance was fueled partially by corruption, and by incompetence and waste in the governance structure and processes of the nation.
He highlighted some areas of concern that are undergoing investigation and the scrutiny of the Commission to include diversion of savings from budgetary allocations to things like COVID-19 palliatives without authorization, payroll padding, and the phenomenon of ghost workers, as well as project duplication.
The ICPC boss urged citizens to become watchdogs of projects in their communities noting that ICPC was working with the Budget Office to track funding of such projects.
He further explained that “policy dialogues of this nature were meant to deliberate on issues that focus on more systemic and institutional improvements, which also should be sustainable regardless of changes in political administration”.
The secretary to the government of the federation, Boss Mustapha, who was represented by Permanent Secretary David Adejo, said that the federal government was determined to reduce the cost of governance through the harmonization of MDAs.
The SGF, who declared the event open, added that the government had adopted measures such as IPPIS, GIFMIS to ensure that cost of governance does not increase to the detriment of the people.
In his goodwill message, Senate President, Ahmad Ibrahim Lawan, who spoke through the Chairman Senate Committee on Anti-Corruption, Senator Suleiman Abdu Kwari decried the increase in corruption despite concerted efforts being made to stem it.
He said more needed to be done which required critical and systemic thinking to arrest the situation.
He commended the untiring effort of ICPC in the pursuit of its mandate while pledging the continued support of the legislature to the Commission to ensure the achievement of her mandate.
On her part, the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, HOCSF, Folasade Yemi-Esan, who was represented by D. O. Omogo said they were committed to the efforts of the government to reduce cost at all levels.
She said that HOCSF appraised the conditions of service of all government agencies to be in line with all extant rules thereby giving them a significant role to play in reducing the cost of governance.
Yemi-Esan also revealed that the Office of the HOCSF had in place a Performance Management System and Electronic Content Management to ensure that all activities were captured electronically.
In his keynote, the Director-General, Budget Office of the Federation, Ben Akabueze, observed that yearly budget performance report at all levels of government showed a higher recurrent expenditure which called for a cut down especially as sources of revenue has waned.
Akabueze proffered some solutions to the issue of the high cost of governance such as the amendment of the Constitution to restructure the federation into six regions instead of 36 states; the reduction of federal ministries from 27 to 20; and staff salaries to be consolidated and harmonized.
– MAY 05, 2021 @ 18:54 GMT
Tags: Finance Ministry move to Reduce Cost of Governance ICPC
