Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has sent an open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari urging him to use his leadership position to “urgently instruct the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to jointly track and monitor spending by federal agencies and state governors to combat coronavirus or COVID19 pandemic in Nigeria.”
SERAP said this “would remove the risks of corruption and mismanagement in our healthcare systems that are already weakened by systemic corruption.”
In the letter dated 20 March 2020 and signed by SERAP deputy director Kolawole Oluwadare, the organization said: “Coronavirus crisis requires quick responses but it also requires corruption safeguards to ensure public funds are well spent, and promote access to basic public health and other services to those most in need.”
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SERAP said: “By prioritising transparency and accountability in the spending of funds to combat coronavirus, your government will be taking preventive measures to ensure that the efforts to reduce the spread of the pandemic and promote the health and safety of Nigerians are not compromised by corruption.”
SERAP expressed “concern that systemic corruption in the health sector across the country would hurt the federal and state authorities’ responses to the coronavirus crisis.”
The letter, read in part: “The challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic also show the urgent need for your government to improve Nigeria’s health systems and to encourage state governors to commit some parts of their security votes to provide additional resources towards strengthening the health systems within their states.”
“Your government ought to move swiftly to increase spending on efforts to combat coronavirus in the country and provide funding support to Nigerians that are most affected by the crisis, by presenting COVID-19 budget/spending plan to the National Assembly and setting up a COVID-19 trust fund to which wealthy individuals and others should be encouraged to contribute.”
“The proposed increase in spending of funds on COVID-19 means accountability for those funds should be top of your government’s list of priorities if it is to remove opportunities for corruption that can undermine initiatives to stop the spread of COVID-19.”
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