ICPC COVID-19 Management & Anti-

Corruption Advisory

As the nation reels from the effect of COVID-19, ICPC wishes to caution against increase in risky behaviour hinged on critical desire to respond to COVID-19.

From experience, national emergencies and pandemics instigate need for proactive measures driven by local or national exigency such as the times that we are in. However, bearing in mind that the stark reality of the inadequacy and vulnerability of our health system cannot be separated from the negative effects and impact of persistent corruption in past years of the locusts, we caution against the exigency of the times resulting in further undermining the credibility and stability of Nigeria’s health system including the wellbeing of those who operate therein and the citizens to be catered for.

Emergency response is not immune to corruption risks. As the threat to national livelihood increases, so do the vulnerabilities to dishonesty. Corrupt public and private sector individuals will again test the nation’s anti-corruption architecture and commitment to integrity. It has happened before and may happen again. We have seen corruption in past responses to –

managing the needs of internally displaced persons;
treatment of persons affected by natural disasters or acts of God;
delivery of government palliatives for the poorest of the poor;
Implementation of policies to address critical economic vulnerabilities such as assistance to SME; poverty alleviation programmes; improvement in education, promotion of agriculture etc.

These emergencies did not prick the conscience of greedy policy makers and public and private sector implementers of otherwise noble and responsive government policies not to exploit the dire situation to negative advantage. This very attitude of greed and impunity is what has consistently undermined positive outcomes from otherwise well-thought-out national response programmes and laid-out plans that covered everything except keeping corruption in implementation at bay.

Therefore, ICPC, while commending the gallant role being played by all those currently involved in responding to this pandemic wishes to remind us of corruption vulnerabilities in COVID-19 management and response.

Please take note and avoid these pitfalls-

Corruption risks inherent in emergency procurement;
Non-compliance with laid-down procedures – get necessary approvals. In emergencies approvals are not delayed;
Disregarding due diligence;
Neglecting post quarantine management and regulatory controls;
Ignoring financial control regulations and limits;
Engaging in conflict of interest, nepotism, padding, inflated costs and other risky behaviour in the name of emergency response.

This Advisory is not finger pointing at the health sector or its leaders and others in government and outside government who have sacrificially and admirably led our response to COVID-19 thus far. It is an opportunity for reflection and warning to all Nigerians at national and sub-national levels that it is wise to remember that keeping safe distancing from post-pandemic corruption investigation in any sector of the economy is as important as safe social distancing to prevent COVID-19.

The noble desire of government to ameliorate the pain of citizens in these difficult times should not be converted to another rue de la corruption. COVID-19 should not be used as excuse for corruption in any sector of the economy.

Better to be safe than sorry. Responding to this or any other emergency or implementation of government policy for that matter should not increase integrity deficit or risky behaviour.

Keep your social distance from corruption.

COVID-19 Pandemic: ICPC sets up Funds

Monitoring Team

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) in the execution of its preventive mandate in Section 6 (b)-(d) of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000, has set up an independent COVID-19 Funds Monitoring Team charged with the prevention of possible financial abuses that may arise in the management of the Covid-19 special intervention funds.

The Team will monitor the disbursement and utilisation of the funds, donations, and other receipts mobilised towards combating the outbreak of the Coronavirus in the country.

The Team will deploy appropriate strategy to prevent incidences of corruption that may have negative impact on the efforts of government to deal effectively with the pandemic and its work will complement the efforts of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 with regard to transparency and accountability in the management of the funds.

While the Commission salutes all those in the frontline of battling the outbreak and everyone facilitating the national effort behind the scene, it hereby reiterates its earlier advisory to all actors in the management chain of the COVID-19 response to steer clear of all unethical and corrupt acts that could result in criminal investigation and consequences.

ICPC draws up Guidelines for PTF Management

of COVID-19 Relief Funds

Leveraging on its preventive mandate as enshrined in Section 6 (b)-(d) of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000, the Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has drawn up corruption prevention guidelines for the management of relief funds by the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19.

The guidelines are in furtherance of the objective for which the Commission recently set up a monitoring team to collaborate with the PTF in ensuring the transparent utilization of funds, donations and other receipts mobilized towards combating the outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease in the country.

Salient among the several provisions of the guidelines are: first, the Bank Accounts Policy which allows the Chairman of the PTF the discretion to designate bank accounts solely for the collection of funds and donations, as well as a specific bank account that receipts are swept into for expenditure whose signatories, though appointed by the Chairman, PTF shall not have approving powers. Reconciliations of the accounts and books maintained shall be submitted to the Chairman, PTF monthly.

Also, there is the Expenditures and Payments provision which requires payments to vendors, suppliers, and ad-hoc staff to be mainly by bank transfer after they have made supplies or rendered service to leave trails.

Furthermore, the responsibility for procurements rests on the shoulders of the Chairman, PTF and all such procurements are required to adhere to the provisions of Section 43 of the Public Procurement Act, 2007 in the emergency period. Additionally, all post-COVID procurements must comply fully with the comprehensive provisions of the procurement law.

The guidelines also require all cash advances to be subject to the Financial Regulations (FR) and Public Service Rules (PSR). Petty cash advances may be made to an officer for petty cash transactions as approved by the Chairman, PTF. Officials who receive such advances shall be personally accountable and financially liable for the custody and management of the advances. They must account for the advances at any given time and are to report weekly to the Chairman or as he may direct.

What is more, the guidelines make quite useful and specific provisions to take care of approval thresholds, audit, monitoring and evaluation while encouraging the Task Force to “engage the active participation of individuals or groups outside the public sector to enhance accountability, transparency and promote public participation and contribution”. This is to ensure that information is made available to the public and for them to provide feedback through the ICPC toll-free telephone lines, email, social media platforms, etc. to eliminate the suspicion of corruption.

The guidelines shall not apply to donations and receipts from the private sector unless they are given to the Task Force to manage.

It may be recalled that Chairman of ICPC, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, had set up the independent COVID-19 Funds Monitoring Team with the responsibility of preventing possible financial abuses that may arise in the management of these funds.

While inaugurating the team at the ICPC headquarters in Abuja, Prof. Owasanoye had noted that the team would be working in collaboration with the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 to ensure value for money, fairness, transparency, accountability and integrity, in order that the COVID-19 funds achieve their intended outcomes in the overall interest of the nation.

ICPC Discloses Measures taken in Managing

Covid-19 Funds

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has disclosed various measures being taken to ensure transparency, accountability and rectitude in the management of the Federal Government’s Covid-19 management funds and palliatives.

These were part of the highlights of a Zoom Webinar tagged: Covid-19 Funds Management and Monitoring: Preventing a Slide into Old Habits organised by the Commission and anchored by its Chairman, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye.

In a presentation titled “ICPC Monitoring Obligation and Strategy Re: COVID-19 Emergency”, the Director of Operations of the Commission, Mr. Akeem Lawal disclosed that the Commission was investigating reports of alleged diversion of COVID-19 logistics/contingency funds into personal accounts.

He said there were also alleged fraud by some public institutions involved in the release and distribution of grains from the strategic food reserve and that there were also alleged infractions in the procurement of COVID-19 palliatives and logistics, as well as in the handling of funds for community sensitisation activities.

Mr. Lawal said another issue being investigated by the Commission was the report that state governments were using the pandemic to “financially exploit local governments”. He however emphasised that the reports, at the moment, can only be regarded as allegations and were being investigated, saying that enforcement action would be taken if they were found to be true.

He noted that at the beginning of the lockdown in March, ICPC had issued an advisory to officials that would be involved in managing the pandemic not to see it as an opportunity for corruption, and that at the instance of the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 Management (PTF) , the Commission had also appointed observers to work closely with it.

He said the Commission further constituted an independent in-house monitoring team which tracks all activities relating to Covid-19 funds management as well as disbursements of palliatives; all in a bid to prevent corruption in the pandemic management processes, noting that by and large, major signals received indicated that there has been some caution in the overall handling of the funds.

The Accountant- General of the Federation, Mr. Ahmed Idris, in his presentation titled ”Framework for the Management of Covid-19 Funds under TSA” mentioned some of the measures adopted by his office to ensure good utilization of the funds. These include:

– Publishing Expenditure on Covid-19 daily through a dedicated transparency website www.opentreasury.gov.ng

– All MDAs were mandated to publish on their individual portals all expenditures relating to Covid-19

– All expenditures must go through appropriation by the National Assembly.

– A line item called Fund Source was created to enable the easy tracking of all receipts and related expenditures.

– All MDAs should honour FOI requests on Covid-19 expenditures as failure to do so will be considered a violation of the guidelines as approved by Mr. President.

For full papers presented at the webinar, please visit the download section of the ICPC website under paper presentations.

ICPC, Stakeholders Parley on COVID-19 Funds

Management and Monitoring

In response to increasing public concerns on the handling of the Federal Government’s Covid-19 funds and palliatives, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), in collaboration with the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF), has convened a meeting of relevant stakeholders to examine the measures put in place to ensure transparency and accountability in the funds’ management.

Due to the risk associated with social proximity because of the Coronavirus pandemic, the meeting was held virtually on the Zoom platform and had in attendance representatives of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development (FMHADMSD), the media, civil society organizations (CSOs), etc.

The Chairman of ICPC, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, who anchored the meeting, in his welcome remarks, listed some of the proactive measures that had been taken by the Commission to prevent corruption in the Covid-19 funds handling to include: the issuance of an advisory in March at the beginning of the pandemic lockdown; the setting up of an ICPC monitoring team; the appointment of third party observers at the behest of the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 Funds itself; the drawing up of guidelines for management of the funds by the PTF; and sundry anti-corruption messaging in the media to sensitize officials on the need for accountability.

Prof. Owasanoye further disclosed to the participants that the FMHADMSD had been invited specifically to address questions that would arise on the government’s Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) and the Home-Grown School Feeding (HGSF) programmes given the controversies surrounding their implementation in the period of the lockdown.

The meeting proper began with a presentation by Mr. Sylva Okolieabor, representing the OAGF, titled: Framework for Management of Covid-19 Funds in Nigeria under the TSA wherein he discussed some of the steps taken for probity in the emergency funds handling. According to him, these generally included insisting on the National Assembly’s appropriation before the funds could be spent as well as publishing expenditures on government’s transparency portal www.opentreasury.gov.ng and individual spending ministries’ websites.

This was followed by a presentation entitled: Delivering a Transparent Food Ration Distribution by Mr. Dotun Adebayo of the FMHADMSD. He said the school feeding programme had had some unspent budgeted funds at the end of April 2020, and since pupils were no longer in school because of the Covid-19 crisis, the National Social Investment Office (NSIO), in line with the President’s directive in one of his broadcasts on giving palliatives to the vulnerable in the society, sought for and secured official approval to distribute food items to the school pupils’ families in their various homes with the funds. He assured that the distribution was being done systemically with an eye on accountability and in good faith.

Another presentation by the FMHADMSD which dealt with the subject of palliatives was titled: Delivering Palliatives Transparently: Cash Transfer in Focus and was made by Mr. Iorwa Apera of the NSIO. He reminded the audience that the President had directed that the Conditional Cash Transfer payments to the poor be made as part of government Covid-19 palliatives, and that these included the arrears of January and February 2020 in addition to two months’ advance payments. Mr. Apera revealed that the CCT programme was yet to access any other government funds for the purpose of palliatives as believed in some quarters, while noting that both the Accountant-General of the Federation and the Auditor-General of the Federation had been playing their statutory roles in the disbursement of the CCT funds. He also said the programme was being run with monitoring by third party CSOs and others for the purpose of transparency.

In yet another presentation titled: Guidelines for the Conduct of Procurements that Respond to Covid-19 made by Engr. Isaiah Yesufu of the Bureau for Public Procurement, it was revealed that retroactive approvals in times of emergency were recognised by the Public Procurement Act 2007. However, Mr. Yesufu said this provision had to be regulated by the Bureau on the basis of the type of goods or services to be procured through the introduction of emergency guidelines, explaining that this was meant to curb the high corruption risks in emergency procurements while fast-tracking the delivery of essential and critical goods and services.

For civil society organisations, there was a presentation to assist them monitor the Covid-19 funds entitled: Engaging CSOs for Covid-19 Funds Utilization Monitoring. The Chairman of HEDA Resource Centre and Civil Society Network Against Corruption, Mr. Olanrewaju Suraju, who made it, listed logical steps CSOs should follow in doing this which ranged from identifying beneficiaries, obtaining relevant contract documents all through to making confidential reports to relevant government agencies on their findings and follow-up advocacy for public ownership. He also urged the OAGF to initiate collaboration with CSOs to monitor the handling of emergency management funds.

The last presentation was made by the Director of Operations, ICPC, Mr. Akeem Lawal and it was titled: ICPC Monitoring Obligations and Strategy Re: Covid-19 Emergency. Among other things, he spoke about FG’s commitments and responses to the Covid-19 pandemic to include the release of N10billion and N5billion to the Lagos State government and the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) respectively and other huge receipts and donations to government for managing the pandemic. He also explained the bases for ICPC intervention in the Covid-19 funds handling to include the statutory duty of the Commission to eliminate or reduce corruption in government activities; the huge financial receipts, donations and investments of government in the pandemic management which require value-for–money; as well as ensuring transparency and accountability in the utilization of funds and distribution of palliatives.

Mr. Lawal further made a rundown of the Commission’s efforts in preventing corruption in the Covid-19 funds management which were generally captured in the ICPC Chairman’s welcome remarks. Notably, he said the Commission would be taking enforcement actions on reports of violations that it had received.

His presentation was followed by the interactive session which saw participants asking questions and making enquiries such as wanting to know the total number of beneficiaries on the CCT register or whether the register was in the public domain; and why school pupils were being fed at home when one of the cardinal objectives of the programme was to attract children to school.

The presenters then took turns to provide appropriate responses to the questions.

In his closing remarks, the ICPC Chairman revealed that information reaching him indicated that the private sector contributions to the Covid-19 funds which were announced had not been made available to government. Rather that government makes requests for support in certain areas and the contributions which are still held by the private sector are then used.