By Our Correspondent
A Niger Delta based Non-Governmental Organization, Center for Peace and Environmental Justice (CEPEJ), has joined other Nigerians and groups to condemn in strong term the discovery of projects allegedly sneaked into the Federal Government’s 2016 Appropriation Bill by unscrupulous civil servants.
To this end, the Center has advised the government to strength anti-graft agencies especially Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to focus its activities primarily on civil service with a view to bringing thieving civil servants to face justice.
The Center described as absurd the revelation that projects were smuggled into the fiscal plan, noting that the amount allegedly involved in the said scam was merely scratching the surface of the illicit activities of civil servants.
This is contained in a statement issued in Warri and signed by the National Coordinator of CEPEJ, Comrade Sheriff Mulade.
CEPEJ advised the government to fish out and prosecute the perpetrator(s) of the 2016 Appropriation Bill sabotage to serve as a deterrent to other prospective saboteurs in the civil service and dissuades them from engaging in such unpatriotic initiatives.
It decried what it described as a systemic corruption in the civil service, reiterating that ample attention must be paid on the civil service if the war on corruption is to make any meaningful headway.
The Center maintained that the heists allegedly perpetrated by the like of Yakubu Yesufu and Abdulrashid Maina were still fresh on living memories and urged the government to do everything possible to revamp the civil service.
‘’During his campaigns the president promised to stamp out corruption. We know that he may not end corruption completely, but we are expecting a drastic drop in corruption in this country and successive government can follow in his steps until the menace is completely wiped out’’, the statement said.
The Center described corruption as a cankerworm that was capable of destroying the fabric of the country if not uprooted, attributing the underdevelopment of the country to the ‘’endemic and systemic’’ sleaze.
The Center called on Nigerians to throw their weights behind the President as he needs the collective will of the people to succeed in the campaigns, saying that era of business as usual was over and enjoined Nigerians to adopt new procedures of incorruptibility in their transactions.
