By Daniel Tyokua
The Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) has called on the staff of Federal Capital Territory Administration who have not declare their assets to do so to improve the working system.
Suleiman Usman, the FCT state director of the bureau to ensure timely and accurate declaration of their assets, for transparency and accountability purposes, as government offices are held in trust on behalf of the citizens.
He stated this during a one-day enlightenment campaign, yesterday, saying that the Bureau aims at sensitizing public servants on the importance of asset declaration, alongside with the dos and don’t enshrined in the code of conduct.
Usman, noted that a lot of public servants were still ignorant of some of the relevant information and practices expected of their roles, which is why they unknowingly end up normalizing the illegalities within the system.
The Director also frowned against the practice where public servants use office hours to engage in private businesses.
He warned that while the CCB will continue to work with stakeholders to keep things in check, the Bureau will not fail to take necessary measures against any civil servant who is petitioned, investigated by the Bureau’s committee and found guilty of using official hours for private businesses.
“We are here to enlighten the civil servants of the FCT Administration on the importance of asset declaration and ensure that we have total compliance. We also enlightened them on the code of conduct of public officers so that they will know their dos and don’t alongside their responsibilities.
“We don’t expect each and every person to understand us right away but we are optimistic that various Heads of Departments will help in clarifying our message to individuals that didn’t comprehend.
“The Bureau’s has a committee that investigates and and take the necessary measure, which is why we specified that civil servants must not engage in direct managing of private business, if they want to carry out private businesses,” he stated.
In her remarks, the Acting Director Reform Coordination and Service Improvement, FCTA, Jumai Ahmadu, said that the enlightenment campaign is a routine activity of the Bureau across the country that is done periodically, in order to refresh the minds of civil servants in declaration of their assets which is done every 4 years.
Ahmadu, added that the FCT Administration is taking deliberate efforts to ensure that people know what is expected of them by giving them detailed information on how to declare their assets.
She, explained that public servants who acquire properties a long time ago, are expected to declare the current value of such properties and not the value they were acquired at, while properties acquired through inheritance are simply to be stated as such.
In her words, “This enlightenment campaign is a routine activity of the Code of Conduct Bureau that is done periodically across the country and the declaration of assets is done every 4 years which springs the possibility of public servants forgetting what they need to do.
“The government is taking deliberate efforts to ensure that people know what they need to do. The Permanent Secretary has also instructed that more batches of this sensitization will be done in the coming days for civil servants living in the FCT, so that they can get the information comfortably, assimilate it well and then put it to use.”
She, therefore advised staff of the FCTA to take the sensitisation campaign seriously and put the information derived to good use, noting that there have been cases where people got convicted for under declaration or outright non-declaration of their assets.
