The Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, Professor Bolaji Owasanoye SAN, has hailed the contributions of the Anti-corruption and Transparency Units of various Ministries, Departments and Agencies in their efforts to tame corruption in the public service.
Owasanoye said since the creation of the ACTUs in 2001, with the support of the office of the Head of Service of the federation, to monitor official and private transactions of officials of the MDAs, the units had remained the most veritable means of diminishing corruption in public service.
He stated this on Wednesday in his opening remarks at a two-day Capacity Building Workshop and Zonal Consultative Forum for the ACTU chairmen and secretaries in the South-South zone, which was held in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.
Owasanoye, who was represented by an ICPC official in the zone, Anne Odey, said despite the odds working against their performance, most of them had lived up to expectations in their respective ministries and agencies.
“In our estimation, the ACTUs have been and would continue to be a vibrant tool of diminishing corruption in the public service of Nigeria, especially at the federal level.
“I recognise and commend the Anti-corruption and Transparency Units of various MDAs for their wonderful contributions in spite of all odds.
“The ICPC established the ACTUs in MDAs in 2001, with the support of the office of the Head of Service of the federation, with the view to monitoring official and private transactions among officials of the MDAs and how they relate with external clients and ensure that they conform with highest standard of integrity, and I must say at this juncture that most of the ACTUs have lived up to expectations,” Owansanoye said.
He assured that the commission would continue to train and build capacities for them to achieve their mandates.
“We, on our part, will continue to build capacity of the ACTUs to enable them to achieve the mandate for which they were established. It is for this reason that we organised this roundtable which will be replicated in all the six geo-political zones,” he said.
According to him, the focus of the training is to “equip the ACTU executives with the basic knowledge of the National Ethics and Integrity Policy and how they can contribute towards promoting the seven core values contained in the policy at their various ministries, departments and agencies by imbibing the core values in their day to day lives and transmitting same to their colleague,” he added.
Earlier, in his welcome remarks, the Coordinator of the ICPC in charge of Akwa Ibom and Cross River State, Mr Olusola Shodipo, while welcoming members, charged them to take the training seriously as they constitute “the eyes and nose of the anti-corruption commission in its fight to tame corruption in public service.”