Senate orders committee to start treating petitions on corruption

The Senate during a plenary

The Senate has mandated its committee on anti-corruption to take petitions from the public on allegations of corrupt practices in any government establishment.Senate President, Abubakar Bukola Saraki, at the 11th annual Business Law conference yesterday in Abuja, said that the decision was a fundamental part of the National Assembly anti-corruption policy for reducing the menace.

He also called on the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to partner with the National Assembly in using amendments of existing laws and introduction of new legislative proposals aimed to curb corruption. He noted that the anti-corruption war could only succeed if it is devoid of politics with more capacity building to enable them carry out thorough investigations.

“Corruption is one area of our national life we cannot afford to play politics with. On the prosecution of cases, it is clear that there is a whole lot of more work to be done to ensure we succeed against corruption. The trend today with the cases we have seen play out indicates that a lot more work needs to be done to guarantee better outcome through better training, investigation and strategy building to take precedence over media sensationalism.’’

The Senate President said while the 8th Senate has surpassed previous sessions through the number of bills and legislative interventions, it has also fulfilled its major promise to open up the affairs of the National Assembly and publish its budget while using new legislation to modernise the economy.

He said the vision of NASS is that with the capital outlay and regulation, it is expected that Nigeria will create 7.5 million jobs in the next five years owing solely to their infrastructure reforms and, to ensure a sound economy through a legal regime that must be equally sound to provide an assuring platform for investors, entrepreneurs and businesses.

Saraki, also charged the NBA to play a great role in ensuring that the objectives of the laws passed by the National Assembly to aid the economic growth are realised.