- Task Auditors, Accountants on anti-graft battle
By outsmarting the Federal Government Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS), some public servants allegedly collected salaries from four different federal ministries, the Chairman of Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission (ICPC), Mr. Ekpo Nta said yesterday.
Nta disclosed this at the commencement of a 3-day anti-corruption and fraud prevention training organised by the Anti-Corruption Academy of Nigeria (ACAN), a research and training arm of the ICPC in Keffi, Nasarawa State.
The chairman said that as a result, the commission had partnered with Office of the Auditor General, Office of the Accountant General and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to monitor and execute corruption risks assessment on the various electronic-governance platforms.
According to him, prior to the e-governance platforms, government organisations required signatures of 12 persons at different levels before monies were disbursed, but due to the e-governance platform, it had been trimmed, thus the final signatory could outsmart other few officials in the system.
However, he called for a review of the payment system for better effectiveness.
His words: “It has been done on pension platform; it has been done on IPPIS platforms, where you find one person collecting salaries in four different ministries. People would have gone home to sleep that IPPIS is the answer to our problem. No, it is not. We must keep fine-tuning. I keep saying, where the accountants and auditors end their functions is where ICPC starts.”
“A typical anti-corruption approach will be let’s wait for people to take money or abuse that system, begins to make arrests and it all goes on the front-pages of newspapers but what we do in ICPC that might not be on front-pages of newspapers is by running corruption risk assessments of all e-government platforms,” he added.
Earlier, Provost of the Academy, Professor Sola Akinrinade, said that the fight against corruption must spread across all level of governments if the federal government must succeed in its anti-corruption campaign.
He noted that relevant stakeholders including state and local governments should complement efforts of the present administration.
Akinrinade, who was represented by his deputy, Mr Mathew Ameh said the anti-corruption and fraud prevention training was organised for state commissioners for finance and auditors to build their capacity on issues relating to finance and to entrench accountability and probity in their operations.
He added that it was important to extend government efforts to the states and expand the advocacy against corrupt practices.
“Given the situation in which we have found ourselves as a country especially our corruption-induced arrested development, the war must be fought at every level if we are to achieve a lasting and sustainable result,” Akinrinade added.
In his remark, the Accountant General of the Federation, Mr. Ahmed Idris said the federal government through the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS), Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS), Treasury Single Accounts (TSA) and the E-Collection system had strived to reduce corrupt practices in the country.
He added that the fight against corruption should be collective rather than being left to the federal government as sole responsibility.
Idris who was represented by the Director, Revenue and Investment, Dr. Bakare Wadinga urged the state, local government and other stakeholders to join the drive to sanitise the system.
In his remark, the Auditor General of the Federation, Mr. Anthony Ayine lamented the spate of corruption stressing that it was becoming a culture in the country.
He said there was need for transparency, accountability adding that deliberate and moderate measures should be introduced to achieve good governance.
Ayine noted that though the federal government had rolled out to good measures among which is the Whistle Blower policy.
