By Perpetua Onuegbu
The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, (FMWH) Mr Bashir Alkali, has called for more enlightenment for public servants on the need to declare their assets every four years.
Alkali made this call on Wednesday during an Enlightenment Seminar on Electronic Guide for the Completion of Assets Declaration Form and Conflict of Interest for members of staff in Abuja.
According to him, most of the sensitisation carried out by the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) are usually focused on civil servants.
“If you are asked to declare your assets, it is to engender transparency and accountability in public service, not only in civil service.
” Let me just say that generally civil servants are compliant, probably just a small percentage that may not be compliant.
“But the wider public service needs to be adequately sensitised too, because it seems the concentration is more on the civil service.
” Some of the public servants in public cooperations, are not even aware that they are supposed to declare their assets.
“Probably they feel it’s only the civil servants that are supposed to, when in actual fact as you have heard the director mention it’s actually everybody in public service not civil service alone, ” Alkali said.
He said the session was enlightening as
civil servants were often confused as to how to fill the forms because of the details that were required.
“But it’s pretty much a very simple exercise, to just declare exactly what you have as required in the form, it is something that is required periodically for public servants every four years.”
He therefore urged all staff to pay attention and learn, so they would not face the embarrassment of non-compliance.
Mr Mike Okwose, Representative of the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) and the resource person at the occasion in his presentation said the mission of the CCB was to eradicate corruption in the public office.
Basing his presentation on 14 codes of the CCB, he enumerated some key things that the public servants was not supposed to engage in.
These includes that a public servant must not receive salaries from two government establishments, can invest and own a business but the business must not hinder his official duties.
He said a public servant was prohibited from owning a foreign account, a public servant that retired as a president, Vice-president, Governor, Chief Justices were prohibited from being employed by any foreign company.
Other codes include that they are restricted from getting credit facilities from non-government establishments, take or giving bribe, taking gifts from contractors and abuse of power among other things.
“The code of conduct for public officers should serve as a mechanism for continuous self assessment by public officers in their efforts to meet up with public expectations, scrutiny and evaluation.” Okwose said.
He urged all public servants to adhere to the laws of the land by declaring their assets as and when due as law abiding citizens.
Okwose added that the consequence of not doing this may lead to arrest, vacation of office, disqualification of membership of an office or forfeiture of any property acquired in such an office.
Commenting on the effects of the event, Mr Clement Dung, Deputy Director FMWH, said the seminar was enlightening.
“This seminal has been very enlightening, enriching as they have told us how to fill this code of conduct form and the direction of access form. It is very enlightening and helps us to live according to the rule.
“Thereby curtailing sharp practices, it is good for such seminal to be occurring frequently so that civil servants or public servants will have idea on how to fill those things and to live with the rules and regulations of the land. (NAN)