ICPC receives 1, 569 petitions, 303 criminal cases in 2016 ― Chairman

THE Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), on Monday, announced that about 1,569 petitions and 303 criminal cases were received and investigated in 2016.

Mr. Nta, who also announced that North-Central, including Abuja, had the highest number of petitions of 782, followed by South-West with 295 and South-South-201, made this known during the media parley, held at the commission`s headquarters in Abuja.

He said the commission not only identified corruption-prone processes, practices and procedures in government agencies but also work with them to institutionalise corruption-free processes and enforce total compliance.

Mr. Nta said 11 convictions cases were also recorded during the year under review.

ICPC boss, who further announced that the commission received 106 petitions from South-East, 118 from North-West, 62 from North-East, as well as four from the United Kingdom (UK) and one from the United State if America (USA), added that the petitions were majorly on private sectors.

Mr. Nta stressed that about N6 billion was frozen in infrastructure bank; N698, 450,000.00 was also recovered, in which N668, 593,621.60 of this amount was refunded to Kano State from SURE-P funds; while balance of recovery was for extorted students of FUNAAB and other victims.

He said the commission also recovered about 40 project vehicles from retired directors from the Ministry of Water Resources, who refused to hand over the vehicles to appropriate authorities after their retirements.

The chairman explained that compliance reviews of some organisations, especially on Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB), Bwari Area Council, Energy Commission Nigeria (ECN), Directorate of Road and Traffic Services, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Water-Board, as well as Nigerian Prison Service (NPS) and National Council of Museum and Monument Monuments (NCMM) earlier assessed were in progress.

Mr. Nta lamented that many staff of the aforementioned agencies were even richer than their agencies, hence, the reasons to carry out the operations.

ICPC chairman, therefore, added that the outcome of system review exercises carried out by the commission in some states of the federation, especially in areas of blocking loopholes in internally generated revenue has triggered requests from several others.

According to him, “ICPC is helping states design and implement anti-corruption strategies through state anti-corruption summits and has so far covered some states in the following four zones. North-East (Bauchi State), North-Central (Plateau State), South-East (Abia State) and South-South (Akwa Ibom State)”.