The Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) has called for the publication of assets declared by public and civil servants by the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) to curb corruption in the public sector.
Chairman of ICPC, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, during a meeting with the chairman and board members of CCB, said the secrecy that surrounds asset declaration by public and civil servants was aiding corruption.
He said, “Publicising asset declaration will assist the whistle-blowing policy and our work. We have not been able to take full advantage of asset declaration because of the opacity around it. If somebody lied about his or her assets, he or she can be found out by just the opening of the page where it has been published.
“I want to encourage the CCB to push for that because the public will help us to do our work. They will tell us who owns what assets and whether it is proportionate to their earnings.”
ICPC spokesperson, Azuka Ogugua, quoted Owasanoye as saying the opacity surrounding asset declarations had added to the problem of insecurity and underdevelopment facing the nation.
He encouraged the CCB to review and revise the Assets Declaration Form to include information that could help trace assets such as BVN and new forms of investments such as cryptocurrency.
Prof. Owasanoye also urged CCB to start digital declaration of assets as against the old manual declaration method, saying that it would help in the easy tracing and analysis of assets as well as enable CCB to furnish government with information on the lifestyles of both public and civil servants.
The ICPC boss while offering the forensic platforms of the Commission to the CCB, added that that ICPC was willing to assist the Bureau with capacity-building programmes for its staff.
Earlier, the chairman of CCB, Prof. Mohammed Isah, called for synergy between the anti-corruption agencies, noting that the problem of corruption cannot be successfully tackled by one agency.
According to Isah, the synergy should include not dabbling into investigation of any petition that was already being handled by any of the anti-corruption agencies.
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