Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde, EFCC Chairman
Ike Abonyi
In a renewed move to give bite to the war against corruption in the country, anti-corruption agencies are planning a joint operation to combat the menace of economic and financial crimes.
Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde, disclosed this Tuesday when he met with officials of Justice for All (J4A) in his office in Abuja, to discuss the way forward in the fight against economic and financial crimes.
Lamorde said such a robust inter-agency collaboration would push the anti-graft war to the next level.
The two other agencies that met with the J4A at the EFCC head office equally spoke along the same line of joint operation were the Independent and Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), led by its acting Chairman, Mr. Ekpo Nta, and the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) led by its chairman, Mr. Sam Saba.
Lamorde urged J4A to design a programme which should be extended beyond the head of the anti-graft agencies.
“Joint operation which should involve all the anti-corruption agencies is a useful forum to share ideas, to see how to move the fight against corruption forward”, he said, adding that the meeting should go beyond the heads of the anti-graft agencies, to the operatives who do the job.
Meanwhile, the National Programme Manager, J4A Programme, Dr. Bob Arnot, has said a substantial part of a planned budget of between 35 to 50 million pounds in the next four months will go into the operations of the anti-corruption agencies.
“Our programme originally will start from a range of thirty five to fifty million pounds; probably before Christmas. One of the areas that we are particularly looking into is the anti-corruption agencies.
“We are thinking about doubling the budget for that area. This is a testimony to the fact of the work my colleagues have done and also the relationship we have built with you. We are looking at an interventionist programme before Christmas,” he promised.
Officials that accompanied Arnot for the meeting were Emmanuel Uche, Component Manager, J4A; Paul Beggar, Consultant, Anti-corruption J4A; Dr. Cephas Lerewonu, Consultant Anti-corruption J4A; Anthony Oluborode, Consultant Anti-corruption Prosecution, J4A; Isabella Ada Ezeh, Consultant Anti-corruption J4A; Otsemaye Newton, Component Officer, J4A and Colin Walker, J4A Component 3.