Head of Civil Service of the Federation (HoSF), Dr. Folashade Yemi-Esan, has said that a total number of 3,657 civil servants were undergoing prosecution by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) for failing to get verified on the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS).
Yemi-Esan also disclosed that 61,446 civil servants have so far been verified in the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) while 1,618 applicants were found to have used illegal or fake letters with 874 officers suspended from IPPIS platform.
She disclosed this during the briefing organised by the Presidential Communications Team at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Thursday.
According to her, the implementation of the IPPIS has been saving an average N2 billion for the government annually.
Responding to question on why the government and the striking Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) could not agree on the use of the IPPIS for their payments, Yemi-Esan said the platform could be suitably adapted to accommodate them if both parties agree to work at it.
Asked why it seemed Permanent Secretaries were prone to corruption, Yemi-Esan explained that most of them get jailed for offences they did not directly commit.
She described the position of a permanent secretary as precarious, urging those promoted into the office to celebrate less and be cautious in carrying out their duties.
“This is because even when somebody else has committed a crime, it is the Permanent Secretary that will be held liable for that. That is what the Procurement Act has done to permanent secretaries
“We had a procurement retreat, where jailed permanent secretaries was talked about in very great details.
“I think it is called vicarious liability. When somebody else commits a crime, it is the Permanent Secretary that will be held responsible and that is what the Procurement Act says today.”
She disclosed that her office has been having sensitization workshops/retreats for appointed permanent secretaries on their need to observe due processes in their duty in order to avoid falling victims of the Public Procurement Act.
According to her, newly appointed Permanent Secretaries were learning from the experience of their predecessors, especially those who had fallen victims, on the need to be more careful in the course of their duties so as not to breach the law.
“So we are learning lessons from all those things as a body of permanent secretaries. And the good thing is that the permanent secretaries we have now are not transactional permanent secretaries anymore. They’re transformative, permanent secretaries. And I’m sure that we will not have any of these problems with any of the permanent secretaries today,” she added.
