Civil servants across the country have been asked to resist the temptation of becoming accomplices to the looting of the nation’s treasury by corrupt politically exposed persons.
Mrs. Rose Ekawo, head of the Public Enlightenment Unit of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC gave the advice at a one day sensitization programme on the ills of corruption for officers and management staff of the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) on Wednesday, 20th September, 2012 in Abuja.
While noting that politicians usually point accusing fingers at civil servants as collaborators to the stealing of public funds, Mrs. Ekawo called on officers who belong in this category to have a change of heart.
She emphasized the role of the EFCC in the anti- graft campaign and recalled that the Commission was instrumental to having Nigeria delisted from the infamous list of non cooperative nations in the fight against corruption and money laundering by the Financial Action Task Force, FATF (the organization responsible for combating money laundering and financing of terrorism).
David Nkpe, a representative of EFCC’s Director of Operations, Olaolu Adegbite, took the participants through the EFCC’ operations activities which he said primarily involves investigation and prosecution.
Gbenga Aruyehun of the Public Enlightenment Unit and Chinwe Ndubeze who represented the EFCC’s Director of Legal, Chile Okoroma, explained the provisions of the various laws which the EFCC is mandated to enforce. They include the EFCC Establishment Act, 2004, the Money Laundering Prohibition Act, 2011 and the Advance Fee Fraud Act, 2006.
Chairman of the NERC, Dr. Sam Amadi in an interview, commended the EFCC for embarking on the sensitization programme.“This is a great effort, lots of materials with so much information. Everybody talks about corruption, everybody talk about EFCC. People really need to know what you are doing at the EFCC, people need to understand what constitutes corruption, people need information on what not to do and what they are already doing that could be problematic, so is very important that you have this regularly and I will advice that you make use of case studies that show real life corruption challenges, that will help to internalize what is learnt,”he said.
The one day event which is in furtherance of the public education mandate of the Commission under its enabling law was attended by Commissioners and staff of the NERC.
