Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq launching the toll-free hotline for reporting acts of corruption in the N-SIP
- Toll Free-Line For Whistle-Blowing Launched
- ANEEJ, CSOs Restate Commitment To Data-Driven Citizen Monitoring of CCT
In the Nigerian governance context in which ministries and agencies are usually reluctant to cooperate and build synergy, it is not common to see two or more government agencies collaborating to achieve objectives in line with their respective mandates. For stakeholders keeping a close watch on the raft of National Social Investment Programmes (N-SIP) of the Federal Government, it was a heartwarming development when news filtered in recently that the National Social Investment Office (NSIO) had struck a partnership with the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission to work collectively towards preventing corruption in the implementation of the social investment programmes.
At the media launch of the partnership, which was themed around strengthening collaborative efforts in promoting transparency and accountability for programme delivery, the leadership of the agencies harped on the damaging effects unchecked retail corruption could have on government’s laudable objectives, especially with respect to the Buhari administration’s well-advertised goal of lifting millions of citizens out of extreme poverty. This point was stressed by the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq who stated that the partnership between the NSIO and the ICPC underscores the inter-agency cooperation towards achieving the desired results in the campaign against corruption.
She said: “The objectives of the N-SIP programmes is principally to reach the poor and vulnerable Nigerians, following the growing rate of poverty in the country in the years preceding the current democratic dispensation. I am pleased to say that all these programmes have recorded resounding successes, directing impacting the lives of 12million Nigerians, with several millions of indirect beneficiaries, whose living standards have significantly improved through the value chain created by the social protection initiatives.” The Minister added that there are over 548,000 graduate and non-graduate beneficiaries under the N-Power; while the Home-Grown School Feeding Programme has over 9.8 million beneficiaries; the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme being coordinated by the Bank of Industry, has over 2.1 million beneficiaries from TraderMoni, MarketMoni and FarmerMoni. On the Conditional Cash Transfer, Umar Farouq said the intiative had almost 400,000 beneficiaries, with over 1.1 million households captured on the National Social Register.
ANEEJ Deputy ED, Leo Atakpu delivering good will message at launch of NSIO-ICPC Partnership
Notwithstanding these modest gains of the social investment programmes, the huge challenge posed by extreme poverty in Nigeria came to the fore in the conversation about the impact and sustainability of the social investment programmes. Even government functionaries, including the Minister agreed with projections, which implied that by 2030, Nigeria will have over 120 million people living in extreme poverty. As a counter measure, the Buhari administration is looking towards lifting 100 million Nigerians out of the poverty line in the next 10 years.
As the government grapples with the details of how it would achieve these poverty alleviation goals, stakeholders expressed worries that the risk of corruption within the social programmes, if not decisively addressed could distort or upend the objectives of the programmes. This position was forcefully canvassed by the Chairman of ICPC, Professor Bolaji Owasanoye who again drew reminded the audience of how excruciating the problem of poverty is in Nigeria.
His words: “When some people say they have never seen N5000 before in one lump sum, everyone in this room will say it is not possible. (Addressing the problem of pervasive and extreme poverty) This is exactly what the SIP programme is set out to do. If they said Nigeria is the poverty capital of the world, it is not a salutation; it is nothing to be proud of. So when programmes like the N-SIP are introduced, you would assume that everyone that has something to do with this would have a consciousness about the responsibility with which it should be approached.
“The same thing in my view applies to Zonal Intervention Projects otherwise called constituency projects. So we are extremely delighted to have this partnership with the NSIO and the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs. We found in some of the cases we have been investigating, which have been reported to us that some criminals have decided to take part of the N5000 away from the beneficiaries by pretending to help them open accounts, giving themselves a false commission and giving the balance to the people. For the N70 one meal a day, some rascals have decided to diminish the opportunity; some fellows call themselves agents and stand in between the benefit and the people. They have all become prayer points by the way; prayer points by the poor, and prayer points to the government that is making an effort to do something about it.”
The ICPC helmsman described as unacceptable situations in which people claiming to be agents collude with banks to freeze accounts opened by the government to ensure beneficiaries get the monies directly. He said in connivance with the banks, the unscrupulous elements then cream off the money in collusion with the banks. The ICPC boss warned that those who engaged in such sharp practices would not go unpunished as they would be guests of the Commission, which would leave no stone unturned in holding them accountable. In addition, the ICPC boss said the approach of the Commission in fighting corruption would be to focus on big ticket issues like the social investment programmes and the constituency projects, which would be more likely to record broader impact.
On their part, the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) lauded the partnership between the NSIO and the ICPC. The Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), which is coordinating CSO partners across the six geo-political zones to monitor the CCT through its data-driven project of Monitoring Recovered Assets through Accountability and Transparency (MANTRA) stated that citizen monitoring of the CCT has been very effective in changing the narrative of corruption in Nigeria. ANEEJ Deputy Director, Mr. Leo Atakpu, who spoke on behalf of the Executive Director, Mr. David Ugolor stated that as part of the implementation of the project, ANEEJ worked with six partners across the geo-political zones to monitor the CCT in December 2018.
“In fact, by next week, we are deploying another set of 540 monitors across the six geo-political zones to monitor the 19 states plus FCT that are currently benefiting from the repatriated Abacha loot. Through the monitoring exercise and other project activities, engagement with government institutions have been very productive, changing the narratives of corruption perception in Nigeria, as we have been able to demonstrate that end to end monitoring of returned loot by citizens can effectively help prevent the re-looting of such assets.”
He stated that with the empirical data generated from the field monitoring, it could be safely concluded that the use of the recovered assets are now contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in Nigeria. Atakpu equally asserted that the statement could be boldly made now that there is reduced corruption in the use of recovered assets, when compared to 2005 when the “Abacha One” loot was returned, but was not properly accounted for. Atakpu said: “From our field reports, we can confirm that poor households are claiming their entitlements through the cash transfers. However, in the course of our work, we have spotted some infractions by some bad eggs amongst the duty bearers who rob the poorest of the poor through petty corrupt practices. We have such reports in Osun, Anambra and Gombe states; we carried out our findings and submitted our reports to the NSIO who in turn informed us they had taken action to bring suspects to justice.” The event ended with a technical session and the launch of a toll free hotline 0800-Call-ICPC (0800-2255-4272) for the purpose of whistle blowing and reporting acts of corruption in the N-SIP programmes.
