NACS committee begins operations January 2020

After initial administrative and logistic hiccups, indications emerged recently that the National Anti-Corruption Strategy implementation may begin fieldwork soon.

The 20-member Monitoring and Evaluation Committee divided into six teams is scheduled to embark on sensitization programme and the pilot phase monitoring and evaluation of 29 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in January 2020. NACS is a creation of the Federal Government to support the fight against corruption.

With the mandate of ensuring strict operations of MDAs in line with statutory o mandates, the committee is domiciled in the office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice while its secretariat is at the Technical Unit on Governance and Anti-Corruption Reforms (TUGAR), Abuja.

Over 800 MDAs would be monitored and evaluated using the approved reporting templates under the thematic areas as enshrined in the Action Plan document to assess the state of compliance to deliverables.

While sensitization of the heads and focal persons of Anti-corruption and Transparency Monitoring Units or the Planning, Research and Statistics (PRS) comes up last week of January, the monitoring and evaluation work of the members is expected to commence in February with visit to the affected pilot MDAs.

Meanwhile, the first report of the committee, which is expected to be ready by the first quarter of 2020, would be submitted to the Federal Executive Council through the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice.

This was part of the resolutions reached at the recent joint meeting of committee members facilitated by the Federal Ministry of Justice, the European Union and the British Council. Speaking, Dr. Ada Chidi-Igbokwe of RoLAC, expressed gratitude that after the initial set back, there was “light at the end of the tunnel.”

While commending the officials of the Federal Ministry of Justice and other key actors for their commitments in driving the process, Igbokwe charged members to take their job seriously and in accordance to the ambit of the monitoring tools.

“So far, you have demonstrated seriousness. Carry out your monitoring job without fear or favour but according to NACS document and monitoring tools”, she stated.

Also speaking, the Anti-Corruption component manager of RoLAC, Emmanuel Uche, stated that there was need to kick out corruption using NACS strategy. He therefore urged committee members to be courageous and meticulous in discharging the national assignment.Chairman of the Committee, Andrew Gandu, pledged to continue driving the seat of the committee and urged members to work according to the stated guideline and timeline.