Minister advocates digitisation of government processes to curb corruption

The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa  Pantami,  has called for the digitisation of government processes to curb corrupt practices in the country.

He stated this in Abuja at  the National Seminar on Anti-Corruption with the theme: “Code of Conduct Bureau: Fighting Corruption For Socio-Economic Development in Nigeria.”

The seminar was organised by the Code of Conduct Bureau, (CCB) with the support of Central Bank of Nigeria in furtherance of the federal government efforts to reduce corrupt practices in governance in the country.

The Minister, represented by the Director-General of National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mr Kashifu Inuwa said: “When you Digitize government operations and processes, nobody will have the monopoly of power to compromise, nobody will do things at his discretion because when the process is being automated, there is no need to meet physically to get services, everything will be opened and transparent. This will democratize government service delivery thereby ensuring accountability, simply because records are been kept and can be checked at any time needed.”

The Minister disclosed that the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy have been doing a lot towards curbing sharp practices which are stunting the growth and development of the country.

“There is a need to put down strategies and policies that will mitigate such act. This will pave ways for speedy development of the country,” Pantami maintained

Dr Pantami assured the organisers that the Ministry is in full support of the activities of Code of Conduct Bureau that aimed at tackling and eliminating corruption practices across the country with the motive of creating an enabling environment for transparency and accountability of the activities of the government.

The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation,  Abubakar Malami (SAN) in his remarks applauded the organizers of the seminar for putting up the event at a time such is needed to deepening the anti-corruption war of the government.

While noting that war against corruption is one of the cardinal points of the administration, Malami restated the critical and vital roles of CCB in building a corrupt-free nation.

Malami said that there is need to make government operations and processes open and transparent. This, he said would ensure accountability.

The Chairman, Code of Conduct Bureau, Professor Isah Mohammed stated that seminar was the first of its kind in the history of the organisation adding that its objective is to reduce corrupt tendencies at the recovering stage of COVID 19.

 “This Bureau was established in response to the allegations of corruption against government operations in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s which resulted in coup and counter-coups with trillions of money stolen from both domestic and foreign bodies as a result of corrupt practices by public office holders and till date we are still striving to eliminate the scourge” Mohammed noted.

He emphasised the collaborative efforts to crack down on corrupt activities which is affecting the operations and processes in the country.

Professor Mohammed, therefore, advocated for entrenching strategic policies that will reduce corrupt practices for attainment of goals and aspirations of the country.

Zainab Sa’id