A recent revelation indicated that since the year 2000 the Nigerian government had spent about N2 trillion funding constituency projects in the country without commensurate development.
This was disclosed recently by the Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Professor Bolaji Owasanoye, when a delegation of Serious Organized Crime Joint Analysis Team, United Kingdom, paid him a courtesy visit at the Commission’s headquarters in Abuja.
Professor Owasanoye, however, said the recent introduction of constituency projects tracking by ICPC has forced over 80 contractors back to site to accomplish the work they had hitherto abandoned.
He also spoke on how illicit financial outflows and other crimes continue to wreak havoc on the Nigerian socio-economic and political space thereby retarding the growth of the nation.
The Chairman highlighted some of the measures the Commission had put in place to combat some of the vices to include the inauguration of a task-force on combating illicit financial and capital outflows; building synergy with the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS); collaboration with Civil Society Organisations; and inter-agency liaison through information and intelligence sharing.
Earlier, the leader of the team, Paddy Keer, Anti-Corruption Manager, Nigeria, had said that the team was in the Commission to get its appraisal on what could constitute the key drivers behind serious organized crimes, and what the Nigerian government was doing to combat these crimes. He added that the team was working with countries all over the world to combat organized crime.
The Manager also pointed out that collaboration among agencies on information and intelligence sharing was important to dismantling these vices.