The Federal Government on Wednesday said it has recovered 40 brand new SUVs and other vehicles from a former Permanent Secretary.
The unnamed former pernanent secretary was said to have taken the vehicles away illegally.
Disclosing this in a statement on Thursday, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said the government’s anti-corruption drive is not only interested in prosecution but also prevention and recovery.
“The strategy has proven so effective and that it has led to, among others, the recovery of 40 brand new SUVs and other vehicles from one former Permanent Secretary who single-handedly appropriated the vehicles to himself when he left office,” he said.
The minister said the strict enforcement of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) has largely reduced the diversion of government funds to secret accounts.
He said the TSA has also reduced the constraints in fishing out ghost workers in the public service in most states in the country.
According to him, other measures to strengthen the anti-corruption fight, included the establishment of Presidential Committee on Asset Recovery, Asset Tracing Committee, Asset Register, and the Whistle Blower Policy.
The Minister announced plan by the government, through the Code of Conduct Bureau, to commence trial run of electronic asset declaration starting in 2017.
He said the new method would facilitate compliance and enhance search and retrieval of data on the assets of public officers.
In addition, he said, the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption was working with relevant MDAs, especially the National Bureau of Statistics, to improve data collection on corruption indicators.
”Once perfected, the data will be shared with government periodically if possible, as regularly as government receives data on inflation and unemployment trends.
“The data will indicate trends in corruption and influence government measures to correct the situation before it gets out of hand as we have now,” he said.
