In a bid to halt incidents of corrupt practices in the nation’s airports, the Federal Ministry of Aviation in conjunction with the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, has inaugurated a Project Advisory committee to enhance corruption risk assessment in the aviation sector.

The inauguration is a follow up to a memorandum of understanding, MoU signed by the ICPC and the ministry in December, 2014.

At the inauguration of members of the committee, a staff of the ICPC and chairman of the joint committee, Izi Salami, noted that the collaboration had yielded several gains and achievements over recent months.

He listed these gains as enhanced public enlightenment campaigns against corruption at the airports, surveillance and intelligence gathering activities as well as sting operations aimed at arresting perpetrators of corruption.

Salami observed that reports since the authorities’ last sting operation showed that there was now better awareness of the presence of the commission’s agents at the airports and this has led to reduction in acts of impunity.

“There is a need to continue the tempo of the intervention, so that the anti-corruption message will be consolidated”, Salami said.

He noted that the corruption risk assessment is a graft prevention tool that works with the organization’s management to identify vulnerable areas that prone to corruption, proffer recommendations to such and equally develop integrity plans that would strengthen accountability and transparency towards checking corruption and enhancing service delivery.

“It is focused on studying organizational systems and operational environments with a view to addressing identified corruption risks therein. It is pertinent to emphasize that CRA is not criminal investigation, but rather a study of systems with a view to recommend a review so as to reduce corruption. The review document is known as an integrity plan”, he added.

He also appreciated the efforts of the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, which he said had undertaken to fund the risk assessment project.

He said that it was also worthy of note that UNDP had supported several of the commission’s projects including the training of corruption risk assessors in the UNDP Virtual School in 2012, a pilot risk assessment project in the nation’s seaports in 2013 and an ongoing assessment in MDG-related MDAs of Education, Health and Water Resources.

In a presentation by an ICPC staff member, Azuka Ogugua, it was revealed that the capacity of the aviation sector to play its role in the economic growth and development of the nation had been hampered by endemic corruption, which had led to the current collaboration between ICPC and the aviation ministry.

According to Ogugua, the duties of the Project Advisory Committee include the approval of timelines for the conduct of the CRA, ensuring of full and timely participation of aviation sector agencies, arranging meetings and stakeholder events and providing logistics support to all project activities.

Others, she added, were facilitating access to required documents, vetting the preliminary and final reports as well as general supervision of the consultants through the project coordinator.

Investigations by www.icirnigeria.org revealed that the CRA would be conducted at Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos and the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport Abuja by a team of certified corruption risk assessors trained by the UNDP, assisted by officials of the airport.

The corruption risk assessment/systems study and review is derived from the mandate in Section 6 (b) of the ICPC Act 2000 which is aimed at examining the practices, systems and procedures of public bodies and where, in the opinion of the commission, such practices, systems or procedures aid or facilitate fraud or corruption.