The anti-corruption effort of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), has been extended to the National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB) with the inauguration of the Anti-Corruption and Transparency Unit (ACTU) of the Board in Abuja recently.
The Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Department (CMED) of ICPC which oversees the activities of ACTUs in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), carried out the inauguration on behalf of the Commission in its bid to strengthen and make NFVCB better-positioned and equipped to fight corruption in its operations.
Speaking at the inauguration, the ICPC Chairman, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, who was represented by Barrister Ifeanyi Obialor of CMED, pointed out that the NFVCB, as an organization charged with the responsibility of regulating and ensuring that quality and safety precautions are observed in films and videos so as to minimize social harm caused by uncensored material aired in Nigeria, could not achieve its goal if it operates in an atmosphere of corrupt practices.
He said the inaugurated ACTU would assist the Commission and NFVCB itself to combat corrupt practices through periodic sensitization; conduct of preliminary investigations; development and entrenchment of code of ethics for staff; and the study and review of corruption-prone processes and procedures in the Board.
Prof. Owasanoye noted that ICPC recently concluded a two-day National Summit on Diminishing Corruption in the Public Service, which was aimed at showcasing the activities carried out by the Commission since the inception of the new board. According to him, the activities included system study and review exercise in 201 MDAs, where the personnel budgets for the years 2017 and 2018 to July 2019 and the capital budget for 2018 were reviewed; and the ethics and compliance scorecard, a tool which measures the level of an MDA’s compliance with ethical standards which had been deployed in MDAs, and that NFVCB was one of them.
He stated further that the deployment revealed that some MDAs were yet to establish their own ACTUs, while some others were yet to meet up with the expectations of the government.
The Chairman also pointed out that the ACTU members would need the unalloyed backing of the management of NFVCB as well as adequate funding of the activities of the Unit in line with the statutory requirement vide extant circular issued by the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation.
In his remarks, the Executive Director of NFVCB, Alhaji Adedayo Thomas who was represented by the Director, Film Census and Classification, Mrs Oyadiran Alonge, commended ICPC for coming up with such an initiative, and pledged management’s support to the unit to enable it function optimally.