Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC), Mr Ekpo Nta, revealed at the weekend that the commission had rescued a female undergraduate of the Ambrose Ali University, Ekpoma, who had spent 12 years on campus for refusing s3xual advances, adding that they were working on prosecuting all the officials involved, Tribune Newspaper reports..
He said the commission had focused its torchlight on the universities, where it has closed down over 26 illegal degree-awarding institutions and rescued a number of students being victimised.
“There is also a student at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, who had spent eight years in the institution without graduating, as he was being victimised. We got involved and through us, he graduated.”
Nta also said the commission had uncovered 50 companies working with the Federal Ministry of Works, which forged tax certificates.
The ICPC boss, who stated this while appearing before the Senator Victor Lar-led Committee on Committee on Drugs, Narcotics, Financial Crimes and Anti Corruption, said that 50 out of the 156 major contractors to the Ministry of Works had been discovered to have submitted forged tax certificates.
He said the development would have robbed the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) of its needed resources if the deal was not uncovered.
He also said the commission had so far uncovered 45,000 ghost workers and saved the Federal Government N100 billion.
Nta also explained that the commission had been able to track some Nigerians who specialised in cloning official passports, adding the 375 international passports had so far been seized.
He said: “We have seized official passports meant for top civil servants being used by traders. We have done serious work on that. I have seized about 375 international passports which we have published.”
Nta further said: “We have gone into direct intervention with the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), most of the big companies that do business for government have not been paying correct taxes or have been using forged documents.
On the ghost workers, he said that the commission had collaborated with the Ministry of Finance to uncover them.
He said: “Of course, you know what we have done in the Ministry of Finance on the issue of ghost workers, where over 45,000 ghost workers were discovered and over a N100 billion saved.
“We have a robust relationship with the FIRS and have actually jailed some of its staff who were not doing the right thing and of course, we work hand in hand with the Bureau for Public Procurement now.”
He said that in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) , his commission had installed a tracking device, which would make monitoring of agencies and institutions easier.
He said that while the commission had defended 24 cases successfully, it had also secured 12 convictions out of the 60 cases it prosecuted in 2014.
