The Chairman, Senate Committee on Anti-corruption and Financial Crimes, Senator Chukwuka Utazi, has commended the efforts of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) in the fight against corruption even as he charged the Commission to enhance its effort to rid the nation of corrupt practices.
He made the commendation during an oversight visit to ICPC headquarters recently.
The Senator, who listened to the ICPC Acting Chairman, Dr. Usman Musa Abubakar, as he presented the scorecard of the Commission for the year 2018 promised to cause the Senate to expedite action on the amendment proposals to the Commission’s enabling law including the one to allow it to retain some percentage of the value of its recoveries in order to strengthen it financially.
He also noted that the purpose of the visit was to fulfill the constitutional function of oversight for monies appropriated in 2018 budget; assess the Commission’s level of performance of its budgetary allocation; ascertain the Commission’s challenges; and identify areas of need in order to ensure its smooth operations.
Earlier in his presentation, the ICPC Acting Chairman gave a breakdown of the Commission’s 2018 budget performance based on funds released and mentioned some of its achievements to include convictions secured and recoveries of monies which had been transferred to the government Treasury Single Account (TSA).
Other achievements include the recovery of 13 vehicles for the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN); the discovery of public servants with fake certificates in some government agencies; the reduction in visa scam; as well as seizures and forfeitures of proceeds of crime.
Thereafter, the Acting Chairman, accompanied by ICPC’s management team took the Committee members on a tour of the Commission’s detention centre, interrogation room, forensic laboratory and other facilities within the premises of the headquarters.
It is note-worthy that during the tour the Committee Chairman expressed great pleasure over what he saw and assured that the Senate would support the further upgrade of the Commission’s facilities that were yet to meet international standards.