The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offencs Commission, (ICPC) said it has caused the freezing of about N6 billion Subsidy Re-investment Programme, SURE-P funds after the suspension of the programme.
The chairman of the commission, Ekpo Nta, who revealed this yesterday at a media parley, said the funds were frozen at an infrastructure bank in order to avoid further tempering with them after the suspension of the programme.
Nta further revealed that a total of 124 vehicles were also recovered from the SURE-P, part of which 40 were handed over to the ministry of Water Resources, which some workers of various organisations took them away after their retirement.
He also revealed that the commission recovered N292 million through Treasury Single Account, N20.9 million from NHIS and over N8.7 billion from different cooperative societies in 2016.
Explaining part of their activities for 2016 further, the ICPC chairman said the commission had received 1569 petitions from across Nigeria, with petitions, coming more from the private sector than government establishments.
He further explained that out of the 1569 petitions, the commission has successfully secured eleven convictions, while about 303 cases are ongoing in different courts across Nigeria.
While calling for more whistle blowers to assist the commission in providing information, the ICPC boss assured that the commission will do all within its mandate to protect anyone with useful information that would lead to tackling corruption.
Reacting to what the agency is doing with the budget padding issue, he explained that the ICPC cannot be working on issues which other government agencies are working on as there exist a synergy mechanism among the ICPC and other government agencies and when one is working on the issue, another agency does not need to work on that again.
The ICPC boss, however, failed to reveal the amount recovered so far by the agency, noting that there was no complete information yet on the recovered funds, and advised the media against speculations in their report as such can hinder investigation and prosecution.