EFCC targets Presidency, N’Assembly, others for fraud risk assessment

The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ola Olukoyede, has vowed to commence Fraud Risk Assessment of ministries and agencies of government, beginning rom the Presidency, the National Assembly, and the National Judicial Council.

He made the development known on Wednesday during the launching of the Fraud Risk Assessment Prevention and Control Project for Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government, held at the Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja.

Olukoyede noted that the project is intended to commence with 20 extremely vulnerable ministries and agencies of government.

The one-day event, themed, “Youth, Religion and the Fight Against Corruption,” is aimed at addressing the challenges of youth involvement in cybercrimes and how religion and culture could be used as weapons for the reorientation of young people.

The event also featured the launching of the Interfaith Preaching and Teaching Manual developed by the Interfaith Anti-corruption Advisory Committee of the EFCC, as a resource to promote abhorrence for corruption among adherents of Islam and Christianity.

Vice President Kashim Shettima who represented President Bola Tinubu at the event, spoke about the need to curb corruption in government, and amongst young people.

While calling on the attention of the Vice President on Wednesday, Olukoyede said, “I’d like to crave the indulgence of Your excellency, Sir. One of the institutions that we’ve penciled down, is the State House.

“We’re going to start our fraud risk assessment from the Villa. When we finish with the Villa, we’ll move to the National Assembly and the National Assembly Service Commission. When we’re fine with that, we’ll move to the National Judicial Council. We want to know what they’re doing there, after then we’ll move to Ministries and Agencies of Government.”

He further revealed that several government ministries and agencies are vulnerable to fraud.

He noted, “In the same vein, the extreme vulnerability of our Ministries, Departments and Agencies to corruption, has led to resource hemorrhage and attendant negative impact on the nation’s development.

“We have also developed a remarkable tool which we intend to deploy to prevent corruption in our Ministries, Department and Agencies.

“This tool, a Fraud Risk Assessment Project, which is also being unveiled today. is meant to assist government agencies to address systemic vulnerabilities at the personnel, institutional and environmental levels, and take preemptive measures. When fully deployed, it will save the nation billions of Naira in stolen wealth, time and resources spent in. investigating grand corruption cases. The project is intended to commence, in the first instance, with 20 extremely vulnerable agencies of government and we believe that, with the support of the government and the cooperation of the leadership of the selected agencies, we will be able to drastically close the space for brazen graft in the public sector.”