Dakuku Reads Riot Act to staff on covert corruption

Chinazor Megbolu |

The Director-General, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Dakuku Peterside had read the riot Act to members of staff who have formed the habit of delaying proposals, documents, and others within the agency.

He warned those engaging in deliberately delaying stakeholders’ documents for gratification to stop the acts of corruption.

Peterside gave this warning during the week on the occasion of the 2019 World Anti-corruption Day organized by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC),

The Director, Internal Audit, Mr. Who Victor Nwazurike, who represented Peterside stated that NIMASA has zero-tolerance for corruption and admonish them to desist from such acts capable of breeding corruption.

Peterside told them to work with due diligence on proposals in time and release them to the owners.

“NIMASA has zero-tolerance for corruption, if you do your work very well, you don’t need all these big grammar, if a paper comes to you, treat it immediately, you meet a customer, attend to them very well, don’t look for money or any special favour, by so doing, you have already started the fight against corruption”.

“But by the time you hold on to people’s documents and you are looking for ways to delay, you are already promoting corruption,” he said.

He hinted that most Government organizations in the maritime industry are in the habit of seating on proposals, delay in signing of documents even as investigations have shown that staff of some of these agencies deliberately declare documents missing in order to take a bribe.

According to him, “in NIMASA, we have an anti-corruption unit that is very active, it is headed by the legal adviser of the agency, if you have any complaints on any corrupt practices, just make a report to that unit and they will take it up”.

“Apart from this, the SERVICOM unit is also there to ensure that things are properly done in a timely manner, if things are done in a timely manner, corruption would be reduced to the barest minimum”.

Peterside noted that if things are done early enough, corruption would be out of the way, but if it’s the other way around, you are already promoting corruption”

“Missing documents is all over at NIMASA, if you have any case, just make a report, we at internal audit is not the first time we are hearing it, we try as much as possible to trace the document”.

“We sympathize with people, somebody has submitted a document, something that should be done within one week, but three months the document is still not released, we are sad about this,” he said.