Why ICPC, EFCC Should Not Be Merged

A social commentator and Managing Consultant of the Anti-Corruption Observatory group, Ivie Richards on Wednesday kicked against the Federal Government approval to merge two anti-graft agencies, the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Mr Richards, who was a guest on Channels Television's breakfast programme, Sunrise Daily, said these agencies were established for different purposes.

He said, "The ICPC came into force via an act in June 2000. If you look at that law, it was directed primarily at the everyday occurrences and corruption issues in the public sector; things like embezzlement, clientilism, bribery, victimization and things like these.

He said the ICPC law hinders the agency from going out to seek information and from protecting informants.

"Section 27 of that law says that the ICPC must receive petition from the public before it can act. A subsection of that law also says that someone who is an illiterate for instance want to volunteer information to ICPC, a staff of the ICPC orally takes down you statement and then you have to thump print. In other words, the ICPC cannot protect informant and they cannot go seeking for information," he said.

Mr Richards said this is different from the law setting up the EFCC.

"Section 38 and 39 of that law says that the EFCC can go seeking for information and they are not obliged to reveal their sources of information. In other words, they can protect their informant," he said.

The Federal Government had on Monday approved the merging of the ICPC and the EFCC