Justice Minister inaugurates 17-man anti-corruption committee

Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami on Monday in Abuja. inaugurated a 17-man monitoring and evaluation committee on the implementation of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy spanning 2017 through 2021.

He said the national anti-corruption strategy was validated on April 27, 2017 and an action plan was developed, validated and adopted by relevant stakeholders on March 26, 2018.

According to him, the Strategy comprises of five pillars namely: prevention, public engagement, ethical re-orientation, enforcement and sanction as well as recovery and management of proceeds of crime.

He said that the Strategy’s (2017 to 2021) action plan, and the monitoring and evaluation working tools are documents which served as a guideline for the committee.

The AGF said further that the documents would help the committee on how best to actualise full implementation of the national anti-corruption strategy.

Malami said the monitoring of the national anti-corruption strategy implementation was to be achieved at three levels, which included monthly reporting and quarterly self-assessments within anti-corruption, law enforcement and regulatory agencies.

Another level, he said, was the annual review of the progress of the implementation, annual review and reporting by the national anti-corruption strategy monitoring and evaluation committee.

The AGF said the review would be based on quarterly statistics sent by anti-corruption, law enforcement and regulatory agencies to the National Bureau of Statistics, using a national anti-corruption data reporting template.

He disclosed that the review should take into account the periodic reports of the country assessments conducted pursuant to Nigeria’s obligations under the UN convention against corruption.

“The annual report of the anti-corruption strategy implementation review shall be submitted to the secretariat of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy in the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation.

“This shall be transmitted by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice to the Federal Executive Council not later than March 31, in respect of the proceedings,’’ Malami said.