By Adedapo Adesanya
The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has disclosed that it recovered stolen assets valued at N77.04 billion in 2019.
This disclosure came from a spokesperson for the commission, Mrs Rasheedat Okoduwa, on Thursday while briefing newsmen on the activities and achievements of the agency in the year under review.
Mrs Okoduwa said that the total recovery, both in cash and fixed assets, was made through operations, interim and final forfeitures.
Giving the breakdown of the figure, she said N32 billion was recovered through land, buildings, and vehicles; N767 million from project tracking, and N41.9 billion from frivolous personnel expenditure of Ministries, Departments, and Agencies.
She said that a total of N1.097 billion was recovered from completed projects on the return of contractors to site, while N1.16 billion was in the Single Treasury Account.
Mrs Okoduwa also said that ICPC received a total of 1,934 petitions out of which 580 were investigated and concluded in the year under review, adding that 83 cases were filed in court while the Commission secured 25 convictions.
“You may probably be wondering the differences on petitions received from cases filed in court.
“The issue is that all petitions that come to ICPC are registered, captured and that’s what came about the 1,934 figures.
“We later discovered that quite a good number of the petitions received doesn’t belong to ICPC jurisdiction. Or sometimes, we discovered that the petitions will be better handled by other agencies.
“So, we advised them to take it to the appropriate place because this is not for us.
“Several of the petitions have to be sent to the relevant required agencies that is why you have the large disparity between the received and achieved figures,” she added.
Speaking further, Mrs Okoduwa disclosed that the National Anti-Corruption Volunteer Corps (NAVC) of the ICPC was suspended due to abuse by certain state chapters, which are being investigated.
She noted the programme was in six state chapters and had 1,826 volunteers on it, adding that the commission had decided to put the programme on hold for now in all its chapters until they were able to restructure.
Modupe Gbadeyanka