The end is
in sight for secret ownership of companies and properties in Nigeria, just as
the Federal Government is determined to end grand corruption in the country,
the Vice
President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo has said.
The Vice
President at the Open Government Partnership (OGP) weeklong activities in
Abuja, yesterday, noted that the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), is working
in partnership with the government of the United Kingdom to build an open
beneficial ownership register that will house ownership data, which will bring
anonymous company ownership to an end in Nigeria.
He also
revealed that the Presidential initiative on continuous audit in the Federal
Ministry of Finance was set up to clean up the federal payroll and pension
system across all the ministries, departments and all agencies.
According to
him, “the initiative has worked in this regard and helped the Federal
Government saved more than N200 billion by eliminating ghost workers as at
March 2018.”Osinbajo also said that 106 government agencies now have Freedom of
Information (FoI) desk officers who make information readily available to
whoever wants it in compliance with the FOI Act.
The Vice
President said the Federal Government has also set up a presidential committee
on asset recovery and developed procedure and guidelines to ensure that all
government funds are paid into the Treasury Single Account domiciled with the
central bank.
The Vice
President who confirmed the recovery of Abacha loot totaling $322 million since
November 2017, added that recovered loots are included in the annual budget of
the Federal Government for appropriation by the National Assembly and that some
of the funds would be committed to revamping infrastructure and the national
social investment programme.
On his part,
the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Paul Arkwright, observed that
citizens today have access to technology, which provides new tools and
resources to monitor what their government promises and delivers and are
increasingly demanding more from their leaders.
He warned
that transparency is simply not enough until it positively affects the standard
of living of the people, saying, “countries with strong civil society groups
tend to have less corruption, high integrity for the public good.”
On 2019
general election, the British Envoy said while the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) has a job to do and the citizens have role to play,
it will take responsible leadership and participation to ensure that
accountability and transparency around the process is matched by peaceful,
free, fair credible voting.
In his
intervention, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss
Mustapha, expressed the readiness of the Federal Government to give assurance
that all information received under the whistle blower policy would be treated
with utmost confidentiality.
The Federal
Government Scribe bemoaned unfriendly data that portrays upswing in corruption
perception in Nigeria. Mustapha added: “In the past few weeks, some statistics
are being bandied by some international organisations on the perception of
corruption in Nigeria. Many of the institutions that produce these reports do
not understand the contextual and peculiarities of corruption problem in
Nigeria. Often they arrive at conclusions and observations, which paint a
picture of a situation that is far from reality. “It is fair to say that our
story is best told by us and we should never expect third parties to see our
corruption problems better than ourselves.”
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