The Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) has warmed that sanctions awaited public officers who failed to comply with 14 codes of conduct of high level of morality and accountability in the discharge of their duty
The Chairman of CCB, Prof. Mohammed Isah, gave the warning at an awareness workshop on the code of conduct for senior public officers of the National Bureau of Statistics in Abuja on Tuesday.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the aim of the workshop, held on Tuesday, was to enlighten the senior officers for improved productivity.
The Chairman urged the participants to discharge their duties effectively, efficiently and with high level of integrity.
Represented by Prof. Samuel Ogundare, Federal Commissioner in the Bureau, Isah stressed that it was important to bring to the notice of public officers that they were expected to abide by 14 codes of conduct, adding that sanctions awaited those who failed to comply with them.
“The Code of Conduct has the mandate to establish and maintain high standard of public morality in the conduct of government business.
“We are charged to ensure that, in carrying out the business of government, public officers maintain a high level of morality and accountability.
“That shows that our clients are essentially the public officers and a public officer, by definition, is anybody who is taking salary from government coffers,” he said..
He said that this included Mr President to any lower level you can imagine, even in the local government.
“So, for us at the Code of Conduct, our clients are not less than 10 million, given all the public officers we have in the federation, including those in the Forces, para military, local government, state officers and elected officers.
“The constitution envisages that, for the nation to harness and make proper use of its resources which are in the custody of the public officers, there is need to guide them, as far as their conduct is concerned, when it comes to their business,” Isah said.
Dr Simon Harry, Statistician-General of the Federation and Chief Executive Officer of the NBS, also urged the participants to abide by the Code of Conduct for public officers.
“Declaring your assets helps, to a great extent, to ensure the raising of standards and indeed morality and accountability in the public service.
“So it is important that, as a bureau charged with the responsibility of producing statistics that are to be used for planning and policy making process, we also play a role in ensuring that service delivery is carried out as it should.
“The only way to do this is by ensuring that the resources made available by government are properly put into use and accounted for at the end of the day,” Harry said.
Mr Biyi Fafunmi, a participant in the workshop and the Director, Information and Communication Technology Department, NBS, said the workshop had exposed them to understanding the responsibilities expected of public officers.
“As public servants, we need to understand some of our limits because there are ethics and rules in government so that it will not put anyone in trouble either now or in future.
“We will also be able to scale down this training to our subordinates in the Bureau,” Fafunmi said. (NAN)
