Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Corruption stalls Nigeria's economic growth - UN

From DENNIS MERNYI, Abuja

The United Nations (UN) has identified corruption in Nigeria as the factor for the stunted economic and social growth in the country.
The global body has, therefore, urged the Nigerian government to take urgent action against the menace.
Nigeria was ranked 144th in corruption perception index barely two weeks ago by the Transparency International.
Mariam Sissoko, the representative of the UN in Nigeria, who spoke at the 2013 International Anti-Corruption Day in Abuja explained that, "if only 10 per cent of the money lost to corruption is channeled back to development, it would be enough to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

She noted that corruption is believed to be the biggest obstacle to economic and social development around the world.
According to her, corruption does not just stall economic development, it also stalls human development and restrict access to public services
speaking at the event, the chairman, Inter-Agency Task Team, Ledum Mitee, noted the country has massive corruption problem and expressed worry that Nigeria was rated the third most corrupt country in the West African sub-region.

"I am not talking here of the holistic macro-analysis of the CPI 2013.
"This is a micro-analysis which is not comparing us with developed countries but with our peers within the sub-region such as Cape Verde, Ghana, and Sierra Leone among others".

Mitee explained that Nigeria must go beyond just making laws against corruption but ensure the effective implementation of those laws holistically and across board without fear or favour.

He stressed that investigating and prosecuting corruption is very expensive and time consuming and, therefore, opined that it is cheaper and more impactful to prevent corruption and close the doors to illicit activities before it happens.

On his part, the representative of the European Union, Alan Munday, noted the EU would like to see an end to a culture of impunity and more cooperation among anti-corruption agencies.

He noted that judges have most times thrown out corruption cases because of shoddy investigation, urging the agencies to do better investigations of corruption cases by adopting better case management system.


Source: http://odili.net/news/source/2013/dec/10/503.html

oooboy... This corruption thingy is getting worse

abati, mentu and gulak wot ar u waiting for? oya ur defence. tambuwa and obj vindicated.