Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ola Olukoyede has called for improved financial discipline and integrity in the running of ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs, in the country.
He made the call on Monday in Abuja while receiving a delegation of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria, FRCN, led by its Executive Secretary/Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Rabiu Olowo at the corporate headquarters of the Commission, who came on a courtesy visit.
Olukoyede says that financial discipline and integrity are key to the stimulation of economic growth and development in the country. He particularly challenged MDAs to improve on their financial reporting, pointing out that the Commission will devote more attention to their internal cleansing.
“By virtue of the financial investigations we are doing, we discover a lot of malpractices in financial reporting, particularly in the MDAs, so we are starting with internal cleansing before we move to corporate bodies,” he said.
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He stressed that the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was serious about moving the country forward and all appointees of the government must demonstrate more responsibility and integrity in carrying out their assignments.
“We believe the government of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is very serious. By the virtue of the appointment he has been making, he will move this country forward”, he said.
The EFCC boss assured Olowo of improved collaboration and synergy, maintaining that there are several mutual grounds that can be covered by the two agencies. “You as a regulator of accounting standards and also we as a law enforcement agency, we will be doing a lot of great work in order to move this country forward”, he said.
Continuing, he explained that, “Yes, there is no doubt that we need to work together; we need to synergize and for once be more serious in fighting corruption in this country. The work of fighting corruption is not just for the EFCC alone, let us stop deceiving ourselves and join hands with the EFCC to make Nigeria great”, he said.
Earlier in his speech, Olowo called for improved synergy with the EFCC, especially in tackling issues relating to compromise of corporate governance rules and enforcement of standards in private and public organizations. He drew striking similarities between the EFCC and his Council, stressing that the core values of the two agencies are the same.
“We find a lot of alignment between our core values and the core values of the EFCC especially when it comes to the issue of our core mandate, we also share much similarity even in our names… So, that tells us a great deal in terms of the value that we can get from collaboration , working together in order to achieve the mandate of the two organizations”, he said.
He further sought the support of the EFCC in tackling enforcement of standards in reporting financial statements and improvement in codes of corporate governance.
“Enforcement in the sense that we want to hold to account those who are responsible for delivering standards and the codes of corporate governance that Nigeria set; those who are falling by we will make sure they are held to account for it”, he said.