The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has ranked BPE as the second highest ranking agency in the 2021 Ethics and Integrity Compliance Card (EICS).
A statement issued by the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE’s) Head, Public Communications, Mr Ibeh Chidi on Thursday in Abuja, said BPE scored 89.6 per cent out of 360 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government.
It also said that the anti-graft agency, the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) came first with 89.8 per cent rating.
According to Chidi, the EICS rating which began in 2019 is deployed by the ICPC yearly in federal MDAs to assess their compliance with extant ethical, integrity, statutory, policy and regulatory standards and practices.
This, he said, was in consonance with its preventive mandate as provided in Section 6 (b)-(d) of the Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences act 2000.
It also reinforces the drive to strengthen probity, accountability and transparency in public service and entities, he said.
“The aim of the EICS deployment in MDAs is to diminish corruption risks, system abuse, revive ethics and integrity benchmark with the view of revitalising service delivery.
“The tool was deployed between May and August 2021 in 360 MDAs. 301 MDAs responded to the assessment and 59 MDAs declined.
“Participants were rated according to their levels and degrees of compliance. Unresponsive MDAs were classified as “High Corruption Risk Agencies” (HCRAs) and are envisaged for further inquiries and actions by the commission.”
Chidi said that the deployment of the scorecard was vital in building good ethical structures in all institutions in the country.
He also said that organisations were encouraged to replicate the tool in their workplace and adopt ethics and integrity compliance practices into their systems to diminish corruption.
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According to him, the values and principles of the National Ethics and Integrity Policy (NEIP) should also be inculcated.
He recalled that the BPE as a reform agency was also in 2019 recognised by the SERVICOM Corporate Office with the award of a four star ranking following SERVICOM’s Functionality Evaluation conducted in November that year.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that BPE was created through the Public Enterprises (Privatisation and Commercialisation) Act 1999.
The aim is to diversify the economy and strengthen the private sector as Nigeria’s engine of growth and economic driver.
(NAN)
