In its commitment to align with the Federal Government’s anti-corruption war, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has held a sensitisation workshop specifically for its management and staff targeted at preventing corrupt and sharp practices within the agency.
Interestingly, NITDA has established the Anti-Corruption and Transparent Unit (ACTU) to prevent corrupt practices in the Agency.
And, going in line with the “Change Begins with Me” campaign launched by the Federal Government, NITDA says the two-day sensitisation workshop was aimed at increasing the capacity of its management staff on trust, ethic and integrity in the workplace by acting as apostles of morality and integrity to their subordinate.
Acting Director General of NITDA, Dr Vincent Olatunji, who declared the workshop open, said the Agency cued into the directive of Independent Corrupt Practices (and Other Related Offences) Commission ICPC to establish Anti-Corruption and Transparent Unit in NITDA to prevent corrupt practices.
“We have established ACTU unit to eliminate all traces of corruption in NITDA because we believe that it corruption that has led us to where we are today.
There is something in this country that the international community is looking for and we have to change our orientation and mind-set on corruption to attract them to invest in the country,” Dr. Olatunji declared.
He assured that NITDA as an IT Agency would look inward for ICT tools that could be used to help prevent or better still eliminate corrupt practices in the country
He said “Charity begins at home and as an IT Agency, any tool we deploy in curbing corruption will be handed down to government because ICT is an effective tool that could be used in the fight against corruption.”
Speaking earlier the Acting Head of Human Resource and Administration, Mr. Ayodeji Eniola, said the Agency has been supporting the government’s effort in curbing corruption in the public sector and part of the efforts of the agency is periodic training of its staff members on anti-corruption crusade.
A representative of the ICPC chairman, Mr. Lawal Akeem stressed the need for urgent intervention in curbing corruption as it relate more to public service adding that any corrupt act being carried out by the public sector officials has negative impact on governance.
“We truncate on the procedure most of the time and it brings about leakage in the system, the outcome of which affects everybody. We need to set machinery in motion to strategically prevent corruption in all spheres of our activities,” he stated.
He disclosed that ICPC is empowered to look at procedure of doing things in public service adding that ACTU is setup to stop escalation of what can lead to corruption which on the long run would have reduce the unethical practices by 60 per cent.
He commended NITDA for organising the workshop for the management staff. “Leadership matters in whatever we do. For organising this training, we are laying a transparent path for our followers to follow and this is the direction to go and as a commission, we assure you of any necessary support you can need in your drive to curbing corruption in your Agency.”
The NITDA ACTU Chairman, Mr. Sarafa Lawal, thanked the management staff for turning up for the training while urging them to ensure that the objective of the training was not defeated by not engaging themselves in unwholesome acts that could impact their personalities negatively and the corporate image of the Agency.