The Presidency says it is currently analysing the sources of data used in arriving at the latest Transparency International (TI) report on Corruption Perceptions Index in Nigeria and says the report is not an accurate portrayal of what is really happening.
The Presidency in a statement issued by the senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity Garba Shehu on Thursday evening said In the coming days, the Government’s Technical Unit on Governance Research (TUGAR) will be providing more detailed information on the sources of the TI data.
The statement said while this is being awaited, the examination carried out on their 2019 report showed that 60 percent of their data was collected from businesses and other entities with issues bordering on transparency and the ease of doing business at the ports.
It explained that the government is ready to learn from mistakes and make corrections, adding however that the economy of the country, in its fullness, is bigger than the sea ports it has.
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The Presidency said it is not unaware of the characters behind the TI in Nigeria whose opposition to the Buhari administration is not hidden adding that the administration deserves credit for diminishing corruption in the public service and will continue to vigorously support prevention, enforcement, public education and enlightenment activities of anti-corruption agencies.
The government said it has repeatedly challenged TI to provide indices and statistics of its own to justify its rating on Nigeria and the fight against corruption, noting that it expects TI to come clean and desist from further rehashing of old tales.
The Presidency said a Naira denominated review that excludes recoveries in Dollars, Pounds, Euro shows that a sum of N1.2tn was recovered by EFCC between 2009 — 2019, saying N939bn of that total was recovered between 2015 – 2019 with less than N300bn recovered in the first six years.
It added that preventative instruments deployed by the administration such as Treasury Single Account (TSA), Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) coverage expansion and the removal of 54,000 ghost workers from federal civil service saving N200bn annually serve as evidence that Transparency International’s perception is not reality
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Edited by Oloyede Oworu
