Buhari Admits Failure Of Anti-Corruption In Some Agencies

President Muhammadu Buhari has admitted on Monday that gross corruption persists in the public sector despite efforts by his administration to sanitize the public sector in over three and half years that it assumed office.

Buhari acknowledged this during his swearing-in of members of the Board of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) this afternoon at the State House.

The President swore in Professor Bolaji Owasanoye as Chairman of the ICPC, while inaugurating eight new persons from Delta, Enugu, Anambra, Lagos, Katsina, Jigawa, Niger and Nasarawa as members of the anti-graft agency.

Buhari administered the oath of office to them at the Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

In his speech, Buhari said: “I am particularly delighted that the ICPC law under which you will operate is robust enough to assist government to sanitize the public sector of corruption in service delivery, public procurement, diversion of public revenue, deliberate misuse of public funds, and so on.

“As I have noted in recent times, despite our anti-corruption drive, some agencies of government still divert or refuse to fully account for revenue generated. Rather than obey constitutional provisions and extant rules and regulations, such agencies continue as if nothing has changed,” said the President.

Meanwhile, Buhari’s confession of alleged corruption under his watch may not come as shock to many as there have been allegations of corruption in some government agencies under the current administration.