The Technical Unit on Government and Anti-Corruption Reforms (TUGAR) has identified corruption and weak judicial system as the reason why mismanagement of public finances continue to thrive in Nigeria.
TUGAR made this declaration in Abuja during the public presentation of a report on GAP analysis of anti-corruption initiatives in public finance management system in Nigeria.
The survey, which was the third phase of similar exercise by the agency, covers ten Nigerian states, including Cross River, Jigawa, Nasarawa and Katsina.
The report says that fiscal indiscipline was prevalent in the states and attributes the mismanagement in the states to weak judicial system.
A Professor of Criminology and Sociology of Law, Etannibi Alemika, while reviewing the report, noted that legal regulations practice and implementation of anti-corruption measures in public finance management were weak in most states of the federation.
Past and present administrations in states and federal levels have set up various anti-corruption initiatives to fight corruption and public finance mismanagement. However, these efforts were deemed not to have yielded much result.
The Executive Secretary of Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Zainab Ahmed, advised that citizens must take advantage of such initiatives and reports like TUGAR’s to put more pressure on government for a change.
As a way of finding solution to financial corruption in public offices, the report recommends among others, that anti-corruption agencies should use audit reports regarding affairs of government at all levels to prosecute infringements on due processes.
