The House of Representatives has stated its commitment to assist the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) with its perennial challenges of underfunding.
Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Anti-Corruption, Hon. Akinloye Hazeez Babajide, restated this during the 2018 budget defence by the Commission before the Committee. He said that the Committee knows ICPC’s constraints and that it was willing to help the Commission to achieve its objectives.
A member of the Committee, Hon. Muhammadu Chiromawa Mukhtar (representing Kura/Madobi/Garun Malam constituency), appreciated the work of ICPC but said that more still needs to be done by the Commission. While encouraging the Commission to participate in public hearings, he said that the Committee was ready to work with ICPC in amending existing laws and making news ones, because according to him, “ICPC has men with capacity, experience and knowledge to give Nigeria sound laws that can stand internationally”.
Speaking further, Hon. Mukhtar said that the Commission should ensure that mechanisms are put in place to prevent assets like vehicles and other perishable items from rotting away, a situation he had observed during some of the National Assembly’s oversight exercise.
Also contributing, Hon. Olusunbo Olugbemi (representing Oluyole constituency), while appreciating the Commission’s good work tasked the Commission to put something forward to the Committee to address the challenges of inadequate funding for further action to be taken by the Committee.
The Acting Chairman of ICPC, Hon. Bako Abdullahi, while briefing the Committee, gave details of the 2017 budget performance and also presented ICPC’s 2018 budget proposal, pointing out that the proposed budget was based on the ceiling by the government, and it was lower that what the Commission had proposed based on its needs.
