‘ICPC recovered, restrained N166.5b assets in two years’

Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has revealed that it recovered and restrained cash and assets valued at N166.51 billion from corrupt persons in the last two and half years.

In a statement issued by ICPC spokesperson, Mrs. Azuka Ogugua, the commission said the recovered cash and assets represent an increase of 378 per cent over the assets recovery target of N44 billion under its Strategic Plan 2019-2023.

The achievement is contained in the commission’s Mid-Term Performance Report (2019 -June 2021) presented at the ICPC Board and Management retreat held in Abuja, recently.

According to the report, assets worth N81.23 billion were seized and recovered in 2019; N82.57 billion in 2020 and N2.71 billion between January and June 2021.

Ogugua said the assets include houses, vehicles, electronics, jewelry, clothings and accessories, plots of land and farms.

She said: “The commission recorded an overall average performance of 134 per cent, which represents the weighted average of all targets. The report further indicated that the anti-corruption agency had an impressive performance in some Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), such as corruption monitoring activities; Ethics and Integrity Compliance Scorecard assessment of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs); anti-corruption activities undertaken by ICPC-supported CSO platforms; filing of cases in court; staff training and non-petition intelligence-led investigation.

“Under its Constituency and Executive Projects Tracking Initiative (CEPTI), ICPC tracked over 2,000 projects worth over N300 billion during the period under review. In the same period, 326 contractors of abandoned projects across the six geo-political zones of the country were forced by the commission to return to the site to complete projects amounting to N32.183 billion.”

She added that the CEPTI has aided improved service delivery and higher completion rates for funded projects in compliance with regulatory requirements as well as ensured value for money in the national budget under the current administration.

Ogugua noted that the commission’s systems study and review of personnel and capital votes of MDAs resulted in savings of N261 billion to the government between 2019 and June 2021.

According to her, the government saved N89 billion in 2019, N147 billion in 2020 and N25 billion in 2021.

The report, she said, further showed that the commission received 3,940 petitions between January 2019 and June 2021, out of which 1,045 investigations were concluded. It also concluded 119 non-petition intelligence-led investigations during the period.

She said: “While the commission filed 200 cases in court, it however secured 56 convictions during the period under review.

“Apart from notable gains in the enforcement mandate of the commission, ICPC made giant strides in areas of sensitisation of the public on and against corruption, staff training and inter-agency partnerships.

“The report showed that ICPC successfully conducted a total of 1492 sensitisation sessions across government agencies and other anti-corruption stakeholders within the two and half years of the report.”