The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) on Monday released the list of agencies of the Federal Government that it described as most corrupt.
The ICPC scorecard for the rating of Ministries, Departments and Agencies ( MDAs) said about 260 were successfully rated.
However, the report shows that 52 agencies scored zero in the ranking, meaning they did not respond to enquiries on them.
The agencies were thus marked as “High Corruption Risk (HCR)” by the commission and “flagged for the attention of the public and for further inquiries and actions.”
Notable among them are the Federal Ministry of Education, Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, National Judicial Institute, Nigerian Christian Pilgrims Commission, National Bureau of Statistics and the National Pension Commission.
Others are: Centre for Women Development, Court of Appeal, National Gallery of Arts, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, National Population Commission and National Environmental Standards Regulations Enforcement Agency.
The agencies also include: Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, Standards Organisation of Nigeria, National Centre For Disease Control, National Broadcasting Commission, National Hospital, National Examination Council, Minna, Universal Basic Education Commission, Federal Civil Service Commission, National Boundary Commission and the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria.
Also on the list of non-compliant MDAs are Council for Regulation Of Engineering in Nigeria, National Agricultural Seeds Council, Kwali, Nigeria, Social Insurance Trust Fund, and the Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron.
In the report seen by Daily Trust, the Ministry of Power scored below the integrity and ethics pass mark of 50 as the ministry got a total score of 46.15 and closely followed by the ministry of finance with a score of 42.45, 37.25 and 35.60 respectively. Also, ministries of Niger Delta Affairs, Information and Health got a total score of 42.10.
Other ministries with low ranking are the Federal Ministries of Water Resources (35.50), Labour and Employment (32.48) and Ministry of Justice (18.95).
It also shows that about 15 MDAs of the federal government scored below the 30 mark.
These include: National Commission for Museums and Monuments (29.93), Projects Development Institute, Enugu (29.90), National Commission for Refugees, Migrant and Internally Displaced Persons (29.69), Federal Ministry Of Petroleum Resources (29.55), Librarians Registration Council of Nigeria (29.45) and Federal High Court of Nigeria (28.73).
Others are : Federal College of Education, Pankshin (26.65), Federal Medical Centre, Katsina (24.63), National Institute for Cultural Orientation (22.50), Bureau of Public Procurement 20.40, Federal Ministry of Justice (18.95) National Board for Technology Incubation (18.35), Police Service Commission (15.78) and Centre For Basic Space Science, Enugu (11.20).
ICPC however ranked the National Lottery Trust Fund highest with (86.05), Federal Ministry of Environment (85.78), National Steel Raw Materials Exploration Agency, Kaduna, (85.46) National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission (82.60) and the State House, Abuja with (82.00).
This assessment report by the ICPC is in line with its mandate to ensure the Ethics and Integrity Compliance Scorecard (EICS) in federal government’s ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).
It is to also assess their compliance to extant ethical, integrity, statutory, policy and regulatory standards and practices.
It is part of the Commission’s preventive mandate as provided in Section 6(b)-(d) of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000.
It is meant to also reinforce the drive to strengthen probity, accountability and transparency in public service and entities.
“The goal of the EICS deployment in MDAs is to diminish corruption risks, system abuse and revive ethics and integrity benchmarks in government offices while ensuring good service delivery. The tool was deployed between April and July 2022 in 360 MDAs with special focus on the education sector in consonance with the 4th National Summit on Diminishing Corruption in the Public Sector themed ‘Reducing Corruption in the Education Sector’”
