Shun corruption, retire peacefully, Fashola tells civil servants
Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has urged civil servants to shun corruption in order to enjoy a peaceful and stress-free retirement devoid of incessant invitations from anti-corruption agencies.
Fashola gave this advice at the Management and Staff Sensitization Seminar organized by the Anti-Corruption and Transparency Unit (ACTU) of the ministry on Wednesday in Abuja.
The seminar, tagged "Corruption Trends in Public Service, Causes, and Impact on National Development," was organized to promote corruption-free service delivery by officials.
Fashola, represented by the Director of Press and Public Relations, Mrs. Blessings Lere-Adams, advised participants to be transparent and obey the rules and regulations guiding the operations of their schedules as they carried out their assignments.
"Corruption is crime, and we urge participants to shun it in a bid to live a peaceful retirement life devoid of incessant invitations from anti-corruption agencies after retirement."
"Adopting a corrupt-free attitude in the course of duty would enhance Nigeria's overall development as a nation," the minister said.
Mrs. Adebimpe Abodunrin, a facilitator from the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Matters Commission (ICPC), in a paper tagged "Corruption and Its Impact," said every office in the civil service was to be held in trust.
"Every civil servanthas been trusted with the assignment given to him and should not be seen betraying it by being corrupt."
"Public service is a position of trust; don't betray it," she said.
She urged participantsto exhibit good character while carrying out their duties, asthe public service was vital when any country wasbeing adjudged corrupt or not by the ranking of Transparency International.
adding that the public service contributes to the perception of how a country is viewed.
She listed corruption acts to include abuse of office, dishonesty, breaking of rules and regulations, and evil and immoral acts, among others, as major hindrances to any nation's development.
"These should be shunned completely by Nigerians in all sectors if Nigeria must develop in all areas; individual actions in the workplace could either have a negative or positive impact on the entire system," she said.
Abodunrin listed the effects of corruption on national development as including lack of development, a high rate of unemployment, a lack of qualified personnel, a high cost of living, and a lack of basic amenities.
The ICPC official said all of these tend to dent Nigeria's reputation, enhance stigmatization of its citizens, and result in the loss of its welfare system.
She added that the monetization policy was introduced because of the high rate of corruption in the public service.
Another facilitator from ICPC, Mrs. Joy Ebbah, while taking the participants through ethical behavior in the workplace, said that the ethics of an organization were the statutes and policies of that organization.
She said that maintaining an ethical workplace simply meant maintaining a professional workplace as well as the ability to obey rules andregulations guiding their offices.
Ebbah, while calling on the ACTU to constantly review and update the code of ethics of the ministry, affirmed that nations had faileddue to the workers' failure to abide by ethical rules by developing good and professional characters such as transparency and obedience.
Ebbah urged participantsto develop a mindset of commitment and obedience if Nigeria must attain its developmental goals.
The Supreme reports that the ICPC is an agency set up by the government to check corrupt practices by establishing Anti-Corruption and Transparency Units (ACTUs) in government ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs)as one of its strategies to tackle corruption in the public service.
The ACTU was created to serve as an extension of the ICPC in the MDAs.
