Merging anti-corruption agencies

Since the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Michael Aondoakaa, dropped hints that government was considering the possibility of merging anti-corruption agencies, different motives have been ascribed to the proposal.

Aondoakaa had, during the inauguration of the House of Representatives Committee on Justice, said that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) may be merged to avoid duplication of duties for the agencies. To this effect, the minister directed the concerned agencies to work out the possibility of streamlining their activities with a view to, possibly, becoming one organization.

The House of Representatives Committee on Judiciary has since taken up the matter. A bill to be presented to the House on the issue is being considered. The committee says it plans to stimulate debate and discussion aimed at streamlining the existing anti-corruption agencies in a manner that would guarantee independence of actions and funding as well as guard against over-concentration of powers.

In a country like ours where the issue of corruption has been politicized, the proposal to merge the anti-graft agencies has elicited politically-tainted reactions in a number of circles. It has, for instance, been argued by some that merging the agencies in question would have an undesirable effect on the battle against corruption.

But beyond canvassing the argument, we were not told by the proponents of this point of view how a merger can affect the drive against corruption. For us, such a compulsive disposition to opposing views that are lacking in logic or commonsense is one of the problems with the polity. When policies or plans of government are dismissed as untenable by armchair critics without sparing sufficient thought for the merits of the plan, then there is every cause to worry.

The real danger here is that policies which may otherwise be beneficial to the country could be discredited and, consequently, abandoned at the level of conception. We hope that the proposal on the merger of the anti-graft agencies will not suffer this fate.

But if we must take a clear-headed look at the three agencies in question, we will readily see that their functions overlap. The EFCC and the ICPC are largely the same. What may vary is their modus operandi. Before the EFCC was created, the ICPC was there to deal with issues of corruption. We do not really see what the EFCC has done which the ICPC cannot do.

If the ICPC did not break fresh grounds in the corruption war, it was probably because its leadership was not very enthusiastic or overzealous about the job it had to do. In the face of this lethargy, an EFCC which was enthusiastic about the job it was set up to do pulled the rug off ICPC’s feet. If the ICPC is weaned of its lethargy and the EFCC purged of its overzealousness, we will have a streamlined organization that will be in a stronger position to tackle corruption.

In proposing this, we must also recognize the fact that the CCT has always been there to try alleged corrupt officials. It is the same trial that EFCC is making a fetish of through the courts. There is therefore a point of convergence between them. We believe that merging these three agencies will not only make their operations better coordinated, it will make the agency that will emerge from the merger stronger and all-embracing.

To ensure that the proposed merger brings about the much needed synergy in the activities of the agencies, each agency, as they exist now, should be collapsed into a department of the larger body. With that, they will be given roles that will not be interwoven with what another department is doing.
The ICPC, the EFCC and the CCT, as presently constituted, have overlapping roles. Efforts are therefore being duplicated in certain areas.

We can do with this waste.