By Nkechi Eze
In a significant move to promote transparency and accountability in Nigeria’s budget implementation, the Initiative for Leadership and Economic Watch in Nigeria has expressed willingness and determination to team up with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC on monitoring of budget to ensure its optimal performance. This collaboration aims to ensure that the country’s budget is utilized effectively and efficiently, with minimal opportunities for corruption and mismanagement.
The coalition of civil society organizations, led by Ambassador Splendor Agbonkpolor, paid a courtesy visit to the Executive Chairman of EFCC, Mr. Ola Olukoyede at the commission’s corporate headquarters on Thursday, February 6, 2025 to discuss a potential partnership aimed at enhancing budget monitoring and transparency.
“The budget is our major concern. Our mandate is to monitor budget implementation; to assess budget effectiveness, identify budget gaps, advocate for reforms, promote transparency, provide evidence-based reports, collaborate with stakeholders, and support capacity building”, he said.
According to Agbonkpolor, the CSOs committee decided to team up with the EFCC “because we believe that the fight against corruption is not a one -man show. It’s not one a one- agency business. It’s not a sole business of the EFCC. The EFCC needs Nigerians to assist it in terms of reportage and information.
The committee believes that corruption starts with procurement. If corruption is tackled from the point of procurement down to the point of implementation, at the end of the day, the money that will be stolen from the budget would be minimized.
“Over time in our work, we discovered that despite the huge money received by contractors for projects, whenever we get to the site, nothing would be there. If we go on site and we see that a project that was supposed to be on ground is not on ground, we will come to the EFCC and say look at this project, look at the amount of money that’s been paid, but there’s nothing ground. So it makes the work easier for the EFCC to just go there and investigate” he said.
According to him, “The need for us to come together as a team, to be more formidable, to be able to render that independent service to enhance the work of EFCC is very important. It’s the reason why we put ourselves together and said, let’s come as a committee; let’s see how we can begin to assist the government in this direction. And that’s why we ran to the EFCC through our organizations on behalf of the committee, so that we can have this interface and understanding and more collaboration.”
Olukoyede, who thanked members of the delegation for showing “deep interest in seeing that Nigeria moves forward,” noted that “we can only achieve that by collaboration. I’ve been saying it and I’ll continue to say it that fighting corruption is not the work of law enforcement or anti corruption agencies alone and that’s why I am so much in love with your Initiative. I can guarantee you all our support. When I see civil society with us, it gives me confidence that we will succeed.”
Speaking further, he said, “We are all victims of this crime that we are talking about. So we are ready to work with you. Budget implementation and monitoring is very key. We will ensure that our collaboration with you is strong”.
