The Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Alhaji Ibrahim Dankwambo, yesterday demonstrated how public servants loot the nation's treasury, saying they deliberately manipulate the accounting system through provision of unreliable information for payroll and other estimates to defraud government.
Dankwambo made the revelation at the 5th National Seminar on Economic and Financial Crimes, which ended yesterday in Abuja where he listed various ways public servants manipulate the system to steal government funds.
In his paper, "Managing Public Funds: Ethical Challenges, Conflicts of Interest and Solutions," he lamented: "Acco-unting officers in all ministries, departments and agencies still engage in hasty awards of contracts in December every year.
He said they ensured that before the books were ruled at the end of the year, all money voted for their ministries and agencies were spent without regard to accountability and transparency.
The Accountant-General implored public officers to imbibe the values of personal discipline, honesty and efficiency in the management of public funds and other resource while assuring them that measures aimed at effectively addressing the deficit of integrity among accounting officers in the public service were being put in place.
Earlier, in another presentation, Mr. Martins Porlain, a consultant and legal adviser at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London, advised Nigeria to embrace prevention as an effective strategy in the quest for the recovery of stolen asset.
He observed that despite the provisions of the United Nation Conventions Against Corruption (UNCAC), recovery of assets was still problematic as countries where looted assets were domiciled were not too eager to release such assets without guarantees that they would not be misused.
Contributing, the Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu lauded, which organised the seminar, the British Government for its assistance to Nigeria in her quest to recover funds looted by past leaders.
Nevertheless, he expressed worry that most of the leading players in the international financial system had failed to ratify all conventions against money laundering.
He appealed to Nigerian leaders to stop siphoning the resources of the country abroad, lamenting the situation in the past when leaders accumulated houses in choice districts of London.
Ribadu, said the commission had returned over $150 million to foreign countries and individuals who had fallen victims of shady deals by Nigerians.
He pleaded with the media and the international community for more support and understanding in order that the fight against corruption would be a success.
According to him, Nigeria is no longer a save haven for looters of public funds and that the scam money was returned to demonstrate unwavering commitment of the country to its anti-graft crusade. This gesture, he said, foreign nations should reciprocate.
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He said that it followed that those countries like the United Kingdom, United States of America and other Asian countries would begin to see corruption as posing serious security threats than terrorism, which is being fought in all fronts.
Ribadu argued that with the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on America, the world had begun to focus more on money laundering, which was allegedly used to finance the attack, saying that the West had no choice than to assist the country, adding that by so doing that they would be helping themselves.
He asserted that more than 300 people were killed yearly indirectly by the activities of corrupt persons "because by stealing massively from the treasury, they deny their citizens of good living, and in the process millions of people die of frustration and hunger.
This Day.