Date Published: 08/03/09

Freedom of Information Law will help curb corruption -Waziri

Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mrs Farida Waziri has said that the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill presently before the National Assembly will boost the fight against corruption and other forms of economic crimes in Nigeria when eventually passed into law.

The anti-graft agency boss disclosed this in a paper she presented at the first annual forum of serving and retired permanent secretaries which ended at the weekend in Abuja.

‘There needs to be in place a conscientious system for the gathering and dissemination of information and this is linked to societal values. The press must castigate the villains and praise the heroes. It is through such activities that people will appreciate that it pays to have integrity. To this extent, a freedom of information legislation coupled with investigative reporting could be helpful. These will also engender a culture of freedom of speech which is a constitutional guarantee but in practice hardly utilised. The freedom of information bill could tremendously help the process’, Waziri argued while speaking on ‘Maintaining Personal and Institutional Integrity in the Public Service’ at a session chaired by Dr Christopher Kolade, a former Nigerian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.

She stated that for any anti-corruption initiative to succeed in any society, certain structures and specific pillars of integrity such as political will, effective law enforcement, judiciary, legislation, media, civil society must be present and functional.

According to her, ‘where any of these are not functional, then there will be a problem and there is no incentive for anyone to have integrity. If the law enforcement agencies are working at full throttle but the judiciary is not effective, the criminal will simply ambush the process at the doors of the judiciary and get away. Conversely, there must be the political will to squarely address the problems and the legislature must intervene with remedial laws whenever it is necessary. Of course, the media and effective civil society groups must serve as dispassionate watchdogs of the system.’

She argued that it is only when the needed structures are in place and are functional that acts of corruption will be effectively discouraged and integrity rewarded.

‘This has been the plank from which the EFCC has consistently insisted that the missing piece in the jig-saw puzzle in the fight against corruption is the establishment of a special court to try all cases of corruption and other forms of economic crimes. Time without number, the Commission has gone through the whole process of investigating crimes only for the process to be stultified in the courts of law for unnecessarily periods of time’, the EFCC Chairman added.

She urged all public office holders to follow the exemplary leadership style of President Umar Musa Yar’Adua by working to enthrone personal and institutional integrity in any office they find themselves.