Corruption kills 80% of SMEs in Nigeria, Africa - ACCA

A new report by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), may have corroborated experts’ view that bribery and corruption is a major contributor to the demise of 80 per cent of  Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs),within the first five years of their establishment in Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa.
77 per cent  of accountants in sub-Saharan Africa, surveyed for a global study, believe that bribery is a major concern for businesses in the SMEs sector, and 64 per cent  said it had a  negative impact on the business environment as a whole.
Commenting on the report, Toyin Ademola from ACCA Nigeria, said: “While sub-Saharan Africa is a huge place, it is clear that there is a consensus among respondents that bribery and corruption damages a business’s reputation and makes it harder to attract investment. The big question for accountants here in Nigeria is: How do we tackle bribery and corruption?  The research respondents said the most effective methods would be whistle blowing laws and more high profile prosecutions.”
The newly published research from ACCA further stated that more than 60 per cent of respondents did not support the idea that the law should treat bribery and corruption more leniently in the SMEs sector than in the large company or public sectors; but should be tackled across board.
The report, “Combating Bribery in the SMEs sector” was conducted by ACCA among 1000 of its global members.
Toyin Ademola reiterated: “This report has a clear message for accountants, SMEs and the government here in Nigeria. The full restoration of trust and confidence in the business sector can only be achieved when people believe that business is being conducted fairly and transparently.
“By adopting a value-based approach, businesses can help themselves and, indirectly, help to achieve the wider goal of enhancing confidence in the business sector as a whole. Accountants, who have twin responsibilities to give best advice to their employers or clients and an obligation to act in the public interest, have a major part to play in this process.”
The findings reveal a concern that many SMEs are not taking the right steps to mitigate the risks of exposure to bribery and corruption. It also suggests that many businesses have been willing to mis-state financial statements to cover up for bribery and corruption and that recourse to such practices has been exacerbated by the global financial crisis.

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Extortion: Fashola Reads Riot Act To LASTMA Officials

Lagos State governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola,yesterday warned personnel of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, (LASTMA) to desist from extorting money from motorists, saying any erring official found culpable of extortion will be prosecuted.

Fashola who spoke at the induction of the new Special Traffic Mayors and meeting with LASTMA personnel held at the LTV8 Blue Roof, Agidingbi, Ikeja, urged the officials to focus on the free flow of traffic in the state metropolis rather than arrest of erring motorists.

The governor emphatically urged LASTMA officers to allow traffic offenders to go scot free if their apprehending an offender will further cause traffic congestion.

While harping on the circulating video clip in the social media showing a junior LASTMA personnel caught by cameras demanding N8,000 bribe from a motorist for violating traffic law, Fashola assured that the erring official now at large will be prosecuted.

He said, ” If making arrest will create more traffic, let the offender go. If somebody is impeding the traffic, it is your job to let him go so that you can do your primary job. The longer motorists stay on traffic the more fuel they burn. Traffic offenders must not defeat the purpose for which you are on the road.”

Fashola urged the traffic management personnel to always report all the pot holes on the roads in the areas they are assigned to enable government rehabilitate them , saying the state Public
Works Corporation was established for this purpose.

He said, “Let us commend the citizen for exposing the fellow in the LASTMA who was demanding bribe. We will get him as soon as possible. I am sure he will have days in court. He is a bad egg that does not represent the good ones among us.”

He noted that the Lagos Traffic Law 2012 had been able to reduce accident rates in the state from 646 cases recorded to 111 monthly.

“The law has worked. Death from motorcycles was 15 monthly before but it has now dropped to 1 monthly. I am happy to inform you that from August 2013 to October 2013, no death was recorded. My first duty as a governor is to protect your lives and properties”.

Fashola revealed that plans are in the offing by his administration to convert LASTMA personnel who are contract staff to full public service staff so that they can enjoy other benefits that a permanent civil servant in the state enjoys.

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VIDEO: LASTMA Official Caught On Tape Collecting Bribe

An official of the Lagos State Transport Management Agency (LASTMA) has been caught red-handed demanding bribe from a motorist who is suspected to have broken the Lagos traffic law deliberately to expose corrupt law enforcement agents in the state.

The motorist, driving on Alfred Rewane Road, Ikoyi, Lagos state, was stopped at the Golden Gate Chinese Restaurant junction, recorded an amateur video and sent it to the iWitness platform of Channels Television.

The yet-to-be identified LASTMA official accused the motorist of beating the traffic light.
As penalty, the motorist was charged the sum of N8,000 and was escorted to the Automated Teller Machine (ATM) to withdraw the cash to settle the officer.

It will be recalled that a police officer, Chris Omeleze, caught on film soliciting for inducement by an unknown motorist was dismissed by the Nigerian Police Force.



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CLO accuses three soldiers of extorting N200, 000 from Bayelsa residents

The CLO petitioned the Defence Headquarters over the actions of the soldiers.
By: Arodiegwu Eziukwuin

The Bayelsa Chapter of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) has petitioned the Defence Headquarters over alleged case of misconduct and extortion by some soldiers attached to the Joint Task Force operating in the state.

The human rights group alleged that three soldiers on escort duty in the creek had forcefully demanded and extorted N200, 000 from some indigenes of Atonyekiri community, near Nembe in Bayelsa.

The Bayelsa chairman of the organisation, Nengi James, who disclosed this in Yenagoa, said that a formal complaint has also been filed with the Unit Commander of the Joint Military Task Force (JTF) in Brass Island.

Mr. James, who is also the Chairman of the Oil and Gas Committee of Nembe Kingdom, said that the accused soldiers carried out the alleged crime on Tuesday at about 3 p.m.while on an escort duty for Agip.

According to him, the soldiers were escorting Agip workers who were undertaking a repair work at a crude oil leakage site close to Atonyekiri community in Brass Local Government Area of the state.
“While the Agip staff and some Nembe Oil and Gas Committee members were at the site of the oil spillage to effect the repairs, they left behind the soldiers on the gun boat provided for the escort duty.
“The three soldiers, whose names have been given to the JTF Commander of the Brass Unit disembarked and invaded the Diesel Pump station within the community with the accusation of illegal bunkering.

“They demanded for the sum of half a million naira but when the people refused, they brought out a Jerry can of fuel and sprayed it on the houses in the fishing settlement and threatened to burn down their homes,” Mr. James said.

He alleged that the diesel dealer and the indigenes of the community raised N200,000 and gave it to the soldiers. He said that following the soldiers action, the Agip officials present quickly filed a complaint with the JTF Unit commander in Brass.

“We also filed our complaint, and have decided to take it further by writing the Chief of Army Staff,” Mr. James said.

He called on the military authorities to order an investigation into the incident and ensure that the soldiers involved are made to face justice.

According to him, “if proper investigation is not done, it will further discourage communities to work with the security agents on the needed campaign against oil bunkering.

“This is a crime against humanity and the people of the Niger Delta. If not investigated, it will mean that the top brass of the Nigerian Military are involved in the rising cases of extortion and threats.”
When contacted on the development, the spokesperson of the JTF, Onyema Nwachukwu said its headquarters has not received any official complaint from the groups, nor briefing from its Unit Commander in Brass.

“But let me assure you that if such reports are received, it will investigated and those involved would be judiciously dealt with if there are found wanting,” Mr. Nwachukwu, a Lieutenant Colonel, said.

Source: Premiumtimes

1 in 5 Africans forced to pay bribes for police, health care, education

Nigerian Catholics pray and worship during morning mass April 12, 2005 in Kano, Nigeria. Kano is part of Nigeria's primarily Muslim north, but devoted Catholic minority participates in frequent Masses in local cathedrals. Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria is considered a leading contender to become pope in the aftermath of the death of Pope John Paul II. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

Almost one in five Africans were forced to pay a bribe in the past year just to get basic public services, a major survey said Thursday.

In Sierra Leone — the worst affected country — almost two thirds of people said they had given money to public officials for permits, access to health care and school, according to the “Let the People Have Their Say” report by Afrobarometer. Morocco, Guinea and Kenya were close behind.
To compile the report, Afrobarometer surveyed 51,000 Africans across 34 countries.

The institution rated most corrupt across the whole continent was the police. Alex Vines, head of the Africa Program at Chatham House, said the figures displayed a policing “crisis” in Africa. Nigeria, Kenya and Sierra Leone rated the worst for police corruption.

“If you were to take a group of young people in Africa and say, ‘Someone has burgled your house,’ the majority would not phone the police,” he said. “They would rather go to someone else they might know who could sort it out.

“Policing across much of Africa is in crisis. So you get informal police forces in place of the official ones which aren’t doing their job. Vigilante policing provides the protection that the police fail to do.”
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Illegal fees collection: Niger govt suspends 5 principals

FIVE principals of some public secondary schools in Niger State  have been placed on suspension by the state government over allegation of collecting illegal fees from  the newly admitted students into their schools.

According to a press statement signed by the state’s Commissioner  for  Education, Alhaji Danladi Umar Abdulhameed, a copy of which was made available to  the Nigerian Tribune at the weekend, in Minna, the state capital, stated that  the actions of the affected principals  contravened  the Free Education Policy of the incumbent administration of Dr Muazu Babangida Aiiyu- led government in the state .

The release added that the affected schools included the Day Secondary School, Tunga, Army Day Secondary School, Minna, Day Secondary School, Madalla and Halidu Adamu Junior Secondary School , Suleja.

It stated further that the suspension took effect from Wednesday, October 23, as the affected principals were directed to hand over the administration of their schools to the vice principals administration or next in the administrative hierarchy.

Abdulhameed  has, however, warned other principals in the state to desist  from such acts and should ensure adequate compliance with the Free Education Policy  of the PDP-led administration in the state, which the release pointed out was still in force.

Nigerian Tribune gathered that the state’s Ministry of  Education had recently received complaints from some concerned citizens residents in the state of some principals, who allegedly indulged in charging illegal  fees, especially from  the new students in their respective schools, which violated the generosity of the Muazu  Babangida Aliyu-led government on free education policy in the state.
The release affirmed that it had no other choice than to wield  big stick  against the affected principals with the view to forestall a recurrence of the illegal  actions of the suspects.
Source: Tribune

Ibori’s $15 million bribe to Ribadu should go to Nigeria, court rules

Delta State had demanded the money.
A Federal High Court in Abuja on Friday ruled that the $15 million a former Delta State Governor, James Ibori, allegedly used to bribe an anti-corruption chief be handed over to the Federal Government.

The judge, Gabriel Kolawole, berated the Delta State Government for demanding that the money be returned to the state without providing evidence that Mr. Ibori did steal the money from the state.
“With utmost sense of responsibility as a judicial officer, to view the stiff resistance mounted by the Delta state government and its official as one which border on the state’s acquiesce in the looting of its own fund or at best, as that of collaborators with its erstwhile governor on issue of $15 million allegedly offered to former EFCC chairman, Nuhu Ribadu as bribe,” Mr. Kolawole said
Mr. Kolawole ordered that the money be immediately paid to the coffers of the appropriate authority of the Federal Government of Nigeria where earnings such as this are kept in the ordinary course of official business.

He also said that the forfeited money be captured in the federal government’s 2012 – 2013 earnings to address specific needs of the Nigerian people.

“The applicant’s application to make a final forfeiture order succeeds and the said sum of $15 million dollars is hereby forfeited to the first applicant that is the federal government who shall take steps to capture in its earnings of the Federal Government of Nigeria in its 2012/2013 fiscal year and shall administer the funds to address specific needs that will be beneficial to a greater number of the citizenry,” he said.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, had in July 2012 requested that the court give a final order forfeiting the $15 million Ibori bribe, which had been lying in the vaults of the Central Bank of Nigeria for more than five years, to the Federal Government as unclaimed proceed of bribe offered to Nuhu Ribadu, then chairman of EFCC, by Mr. Ibori to enable him escape investigation by the commission.

The Delta State Government challenged the application as the state government laid claim to the said amount.

The money was deposited at the Central Bank by Mr. Ribadu who wanted to use it as evidence against Mr. Ibori, then governor, during his corruption trial after he leaves office.

The counsel to the prosecutor, Rotimi Jacobs, had also told the court that it was too late for the Delta State Government to lay claim to the money because of the actions which the state government instituted against the EFCC on the ground that the governor should not be investigated.

Mr. Ibori is currently serving a jail term in the U.K. for money laundering, although he is yet to be convicted by any Nigerian court for corruption.

The former Delta governor (1999-2007), who wielded a lot of influence in Nigeria during the late Umaru Yar’Adua presidency, evaded arrest when the EFCC tried to re-arrest him to face trial in Delta State.

A judge, Mercel Awokulehin, had freed Mr. Ibori when the EFCC first filed corruption charges against him after he left office and lost his constitutionally guaranteed immunity as governor in 2007.
U.K. authorities are also seeking to make the former governor forfeit property worth tens of millions of dollars in the U.K., described as proceeds of corruption.

Source: premiumtimes