The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun has said that the whistle-blower policy of the Federal Government has yielded about N123 billion so far.
While speaking at an evaluation workshop on the whistle-blower policy and asset tracing team organised by the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption on Friday, Adeosun, who was represented by the Head, Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA) and Whistle-blower Unit of the Ministry of Finance, Dr Mohammed Dikwa said 791 investigations were commenced while 534 had been concluded, with N7.8billion, $378million (about N115.3 billion) and 27,800 pounds (about N12 million) recovered so far.
Adeosun, who stated that the Federal Government was planning to review the whistle-blower policy to make it more effective stressed that the government would focus more on tight control measures that would make it difficult for a few people to take away assets that belong to the entire country.
“The whistle-blower policy is aimed at improving institutional governance, strengthening mechanisms for the fight against corruption and supporting the implementation of open government partnership principles in advancing anti-corruption reforms,”, she said.
She also disclosed an inter-agency asset tracing team had been constituted to centralise the tracking, management and maintenance of all recovered non-cash assets in the custody of the Federal Government, monitor the disposal of assets under final forfeiture to the Federal Government by the court.
“This would stem general loss of value, including the depreciation of motor vehicles and loss of rental income from high value properties recovered”, she added.
Meanwhile, chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Prof. Itse Sagay said that not all whistle-blowers will get five per cent of recovered sum.
“One controversial issue in the policy is the question of remuneration. The public seems to be fixated on five per cent. But in fact, five per cent is the maximum. It can be as little as one per cent, depending on the amount of money involved. It could be slightly more if it is an extremely large amount”, he said.
