Mr Ekpo Nta, the acting Chairman of Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission ( ICPC), said on Thursday that prevention was the most effective strategy in the fight against corruption.
Nta made the statement at a forum in Abuja on Corruption Risk Assessment Project, organised by ICPC, Bureau for Public Procurement and the Technical Unit on Governance and Anti-Corruption Reforms with support from UNDP.
“Prevention is key because it is more helpful and cost-effective to identify system vulnerabilities and institute proactive interventions aimed at stopping or reducing corruption than perpetually chasing after the culprits,’’ he said.
The chairman said “ICPC shares one of its mandates – enforcement/prosecution – with other law-enforcement agencies. This mode dispenses sanctions and serves as deterrence.
“However, prevention is the most successful mode of corruption-prevention in contemporary anti-corruption efforts worldwide.”
Nta, however, expressed regret that the public always insisted on seeing persons accused of corruption in handcuffs.
He said that stolen monies were sometimes used to fight the anti-graft agencies to a standstill.
“The public does not see you as someone who is working when you prevent these things (corruption) and not parade them in public,” Nta said.
He said that corruption remained the bane of development in Nigeria and most developing economies of the world with weak public institutions.
According to him, corruption impacts negatively on the welfare and rights of millions of citizens and creates widespread poverty, exclusions and inequalities.
“The only viable option to achieving good governance is to effectively control the incidence and magnitude of corruption through proper legislation.
“ICPC has the unique and singular statutory responsibility in Nigeria for the study and review of ‘practices, systems and procedures of public bodies’ as a corruption prevention mechanism,” Nta said.
He said the focus of the Corruption Risk Assessment Project was to identify within organisations operational areas that were vulnerable to corruption practices, proffer recommendations and jointly develop action plans to strengthen accountability and transparency in organisations.
Nta said that 100 assessors, drawn from federal and state ministries of Education, Health and Water Resources, would be trained for eight weeks in the first instance from Aug. 26 at the Obudu Mountain Resort, Cross River.
The ICPC boss urged sister law enforcement and anti-corruption agencies to resist the temptation of being drawn into unnecessary rivalry or working at cross purposes. (NAN)