The Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) has adjudged the Supreme Court and 51 other government institutions as being “high corruption risk”.
This is contained in the commission’s latest ethics and transparency index report listing 52 Ministries and Departments Agencies (MDAs) as non-responsive to its Ethics and Compliance Score Card assessment for 2022.
The commission says it deploys the Ethics and Integrity Compliance Scorecard (EICS) in federal government’s MDAs to assess their compliance to extant ethical, integrity, statutory, policy and regulatory standards and practices.
It said the 52 unresponsive MDAs are flagged for further investigation and action. The commission disclosed this in a tweet on Friday.The index said 260 MDAs were responsive to its Ethics and Integrity Compliance Scorecard (EICS). It added that the agencies were graded according to the degree of their compliance.
According to the report, the Ministry of Justice was rated among the responsive MDAs with a score of 18.95 per cent whereas other justice sector agencies were recorded to have disregarded the anti-graft authority’s ethical scorecard survey.
The Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals, and the National Judicial Institute are among the institutions in the judicial sector that were identified in the report as having “High Corruption Risk” (HCR) in the country.
“The goal of the EICS deployment in MDAs is to diminish corruption risks, system abuse and revive ethics and integrity benchmarks in government offices while ensuring good service delivery.
“The tool was deployed between April and July 2022 in 360 MDAs with special focus on the education sector in consonance with the 4th National Summit on Diminishing Corruption in the Public Sector themed ‘Reducing Corruption in the Education Sector,’’ the ICPC said in an advertorial post published on Daily Trust on Tuesday.
The anti-graft agency said the EICS is vital to building good ethical structure in the MDAs.
It also urged the MDAs to adopt ethics and integrity compliance practices into their systems to reduce corruption in public offices and service delivery.
The EICS project, launched in 2015, was developed as an evaluation tool by the anti-graft authority to grade the MDAs on Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to ascertain their level of compliance with institution ethics and integrity requirements.
The methodology evaluates MDAs based on key indicators of ethics and compliance under three broad categories – Management Culture and Structure, Financial Management Systems, and Administrative Systems – each carrying a total of 100 points, which is represented as a percentage.
According to the ICPC, the assessment exercise is in accordance with Section 6(b)-(d) of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000.
The ICPC stated that it would further its effort to improve the public sector’s probity, accountability, and openness.
PREMIUM TIMES reported last year that the ICPC in its EICS report found 138 government agencies, or 45.3 per cent, without operational asset verification units. The commission said the development violates the government directive instructing MDAs to create the department.
High Corruption Risk MDAs
Agencies that were classified as High Corruption Risk, include: ‘Centre for Women Development, Court of Appeal, National Gallery of Arts, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, National Population Commission, National Environmental Standards Regulations Enforcement Agency, and the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission.
They also include the Standards Organisation of Nigeria, National Centre for Disease Control, National Broadcasting Commission, National Hospital, National Examination Council, Minna, Universal Basic Education Commission, Federal Civil Service Commission, National Boundary Commission and the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria.
Others are the Council for Regulation of Engineering the in Nigeria, National Agricultural Seeds Council, Kwali, Nigeria, Social Insurance Trust Fund, and the Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron.
Responsive MDA’s
According to the report, the National Lottery Trust Fund scored the highest point of 86.05 per cent. It is followed by the Federal Ministry of Environment with 85.78 per cent, and the National Steel Raw Materials Exploration Agency, Kaduna, 85.46 per cent, the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission, 82.60 per cent, and the State House, Abuja, with 82.00 per cent.
Other agencies, like the Ministry of Works and Housing, were also ranked among the responding MDAs that responded to the ICPC’s ethical survey with a score of 69.20 percent.
The Ministry of Finance, Niger Delta Affairs, Nigeria Football Federation NFF, and University of Nigeria, Nsukka recorded 42.45, 42.10, and 42.00 per cent, respectively.
PREMIUM TIMES
