The Senate has passed a Bill to amend the Independent Corrupt Practice and other related Offences, ICPC, ACT, on 30th May 2023. About 70 clauses were tampered with by the lawmakers, “Committee of the whole” leaving the public with sketchy ideas over what exactly was amended. The Senate amended section 25 of the Act, which speaks about the commission's powers to imprison writers of false petitions for up to a period of two years without an option of fine.
The Chairman of the Senate committee on anti-corruption, Abdu Kwari while presenting his report said, there was a need to amend such clause to discourage those making false allegations against innocent Nigerians to deter them from misleading the agency.
In his remarks over the same issue, Adamu Aleiro, Senator representing Kebbi central, said, people of their caliber have suffered at the hand of the anti-graft as a consequence of false allegations like that, and cannot sit and wait until they are all arrested.
Detail of the amendment as sighted by Vigil 360 has shown that the ICPC has lost much of its powers, reducing it to a mere barking dog that cannot bite.
By virtue of the amendments, the ICPC chair has now been reduced to a mere figurehead that can be contested by any other legal counsel within the commission.
Before now, Section 7(1) of the ICPC principal act provides that “the chairman may issue administrative orders to be called ‘standing orders’, which shall conform with the provisions of the general control, training, duties and responsibilities of officers of the commission, and for such other matters as may be necessary or expedient for the good administration of the commission and to ensure the efficient and effective functioning of the commission.”
However, the Senate amended the provision and substituted “chairman” with the word “commission”.
Henceforth, the commission will have deputy commissioners, Assistant Commissioners, Superintendents, Assistant superintendents, senior investigators, and investigators” in section 4(7) – the makeup of the anti-graft agency.
Also, in the principal act, section 4(2) provides “that the chairman and any four members of the commission shall constitute a quorum”, but a new subsection 2(a) was added which reads: “The proceedings of the meeting of the commission shall be as provided in the schedule to this act”.
Punishment For Bribe Taking Reduced
Section 22 (3) of the principal act provides that “any public officer who, in the course of his official duties, inflates the price of any goods or service above the prevailing market price or professional standards shall be guilty of an offense under this act and liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term of seven years and a fine of one million nairas”.
In the newly amended law, the N1 million fine was reduced to N500,000 without an option of jail term in the amendment considered and passed by the Senate.
Constituency Project Saga
Earlier, ICPC and members of the National Assembly were at loggerheads for exposing corruption in the constituency project scheme.
In September 2022, the ICPC revealed it recovered N2.8 billion worth of assets earlier diverted under the constituency projects scheme.
At the time, the commission disclosed it had tracked 2,444 projects awarded between 2019 and 2021.
The ICPC Director operation, Akeem Lawal revealed it discovered cases of “bribery, signing off projects as completed, false certification of projects, vague description of projects, failure to deduct and remit appropriate taxes, and projects sited on the private property of sponsors around project delivery”.
Lawal said under the Constituency and Executive Projects Tracking Initiative (CEPTI), it was unveiled that most of the projects were handled by companies in which they had interests.
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