Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has said that putting systematic checks in place is the best way to tackle corruption in Nigeria because corruption has been with us for so long and we must crack it.
The Minister stated this on Tuesday in Abuja, during a lecture with the theme, ‘Preventing leakages in the Nigerian Economy’, organised by the Catholic Caritas Foundation of Nigeria, an organ of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria.
She said “Corruption has been with us and we must crack it. We need to stop impunity, we have to constantly tackle corruption for us to stop the leakages. There are efforts to prevent all avenues where corrupt practices thrive in government circles.
“Putting systemic checks in place remains the best strategic way of tackling corruption and solving the root causes of corruption. If you don’t fix this system, the next people that will come in will continue with the current system. And we are putting in place a system to stop corruption.”
On the recent audit of the audit of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation by PriceWaterCoopers, she said NNPC has been ordered by the Federal Government to return all funds as soon as possible.
She also added that “When we talk of corruption, we had a system that is cash-based. For example, when we want to pay salaries we will send money to Ministry of Agriculture and say here is your money, pay your people. For Education Ministry, this is your money, pay your people. Yes, that is what we were doing before.
“Whereas, if we had electronic platform there will be no transfer of cash. That is what we have done. Now with the introduction of GIFMIS such avenue has been blocked. What does it do? It transfers money electronically from budget to Accountant-General; from Accountant-General to Ministries, Departments and Agencies. And guess what in December: remember that salaries were delayed.
“There was a problem. Everybody thought the economy was broke. But what happened was that 14 agencies that were on GIFMIS tried to pay more and utilize more than what was programmed, the system locked them out. And they could not pay one person in their agencies. The President was initially worried but when I now told him the reason, there was smile on his face. He said, ‘so we have a system that can do that’ and I said yes.”
GIFMIS is the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS), it an IT based system for budget management and accounting that is being implemented by the Federal Government of Nigeria.
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