Saraki stated this when the Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, Mr. Ekpo Nta, led top officials of his agency to pay him a courtesy visit.
The Senate President lamented that the embarrassing level of corruption in the country had taken a dangerous trend to the extent that government at the three tiers of government were finding it difficult to pay salaries and provide basic social infrastructure.
He said, “The 8th Senate has a position on zero tolerance for corruption. We want to make it a priority. For us, we have realised that it is truly endangering the entire system. It is affecting our national development.
“The cost of corruption on our national life goes beyond financial cost. You see it in states now, they cannot pay salaries, you see it in the state of our schools and the impact on our education. You see it in the state of our health and impact on the issue of maternity, and child mortality. You see it in the ever-increasing cost of governance and the failure of our public institutions and infrastructure.
“All of us when we went out to campaign, one of the messages coming to us from Nigerians was we have to fight corruption and as people representing Nigerians, we must listen to that and we have taken it upon ourselves, that one of our deliverables is to bring an end to this and begin to tame this thing called corruption…
“For the Eight Senate, making the fight against corruption a priority is a must and we are committed to that. Our goal is to work with you to reduce significantly the level of corruption in this country.”
He pledged that the Eight Senate would work closely with the ICPC and other anti-graft agencies to fight the scourge.
Saraki said, “There are things we ought to do that would help prevention especially among the professionals. Bankers who notice that the account of an assistant director is running into billions of naira should have a way of blowing the whistle. We have to be creative to bring everybody along.”
The ICPC boss said the Act that established the agency was enacted in 2000, noting that was the first Act of parliament that addressed corruption directly and that the United Nations convention against corruption came four years later in 2004.
He noted that the issue of corruption in the country had always been
there not that it was impressed upon the country by the international community.
He said, “We knew our problems and we have started addressing them long ago. The beauty of the legislation is that it stipulates for enforcement, prevention, public enlightenment and mass mobilisation against corruption.
“The Strategic Action Plan 2012 to 2017 was being followed to achieve measurable growth activities. We concentrate on the prevention aspect to rebuild the institutional structures that would help fight the aspect of corruption and several studies had shown that we are on the right track.
“What do I expect for the senators and the ICPC. First you need to do a lot of oversight functions. In the past some committees had sent result of their oversight functions and we have successfully gone into criminal investigations.
“For instance in the past, through oversight we got to know companies that did not pay taxes that were due and we made substantial recoveries.
“The whistle-blowers Bill if successfully passed into law will further help because we face a lot of problems with people who blow the whistle because sometimes their lives are threatened.
“Ideally in a country like this we should have a safe houses where we can take such people to, to protect them from harm. My office will always be ready to work on issues of national interest.”
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