By Tony Obiechina, Abuja
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning Minister, Zainab Ahmed has attributed the improvement in the Nigerian economy to the present administration’s fight against corruption.
Mrs Ahmed stated this on Tuesday at the 3rd National Summit on Diminishing Corruption in the Public Service held in Abuja.
The minister said, “The most recent GDP data, which reports real GDP of 5.01 per cent in the second quarter of 2021 and 4.03 per cent in the third quarter of 2021 are very encouraging news, as it indicates that the fight against corruption has yielded result that the Nigerian economy is solidly on the path of recovery. And it is important for us to note that much of this growth is driven by the expansion of revenues from the non-oil sector.”
Although Africa’s Nigeria’s economy slipped into recession as GDP contracted by 3.4 per cent in the third quarter of 2021, the economy exited recession in the last quarter of 2020 and has since then been on the part of recovery.
Official data shows that Nigeria’s economy grew 0.51 per cent, 5.1 per cent and 4.03 per cent in the first, second and third quarters of 2021.
The minister said to achieve greater economic gains, different arms of government must work together to eliminate corruption.
“The Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning continues to play a critical role in ensuring funding requirements for Ministries, Departments & Agencies (MDAs) that are involved in achieving this objective, including especially the anti-corruption agencies, as well as the security agencies.
“The war against corruption is a continuous one. There is the need for the executive to strengthen the existing agencies fighting corruption, such as the ICPC, the EFCC, and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) and a few others.
“These agencies should be supported even more to adopt innovative methods of preventing officials from stealing public funds through the deployment of information technology, there should be judiciary reforms as well, that are aimed at improving the capacity of the judiciary to speed up the dispensation of justice as far as corruption cases are concerned”, she said.
The Minister who advocated a justice system that would strengthen speedy trials of corruption cases, said, “it is possible special courts and expedited trials can be introduced or adopted. For corrupt cases, we must design our justice sector to meet our peculiar challenges and the ever-changing pace of corruption itself.
“There’s also the need to embark on increased tempo or reorientation amongst Nigerians to change our attitude and psychology as a people towards corruption”.
