7th April, 2024
The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has disclosed that it has recovered over N5.6bn as cumulative savings for the Federal Government from the probe of the Zonal Intervention Projects, a.k.a constituency projects carried out by the 9th National Assembly members.
Under phase five of its ongoing tracking of constituency projects, the anti-corruption agency says about 50 contractors, consultants, and staff members of Ministries, Departments, and Agencies of the government are being investigated.
This was recently disclosed on its verified X account.
It noted that the exercise was carried out to investigate fraudulent procurement practices in the award of contracts for the constituency projects executed under the 2019, 2020, and 2021 budget years.
ICPC also disclosed that about 200 bank accounts used for illegal deals on the projects have been frozen.
It added that no fewer than 50 people including legislators, staff of executing agencies, contractors, and consultants were detained during the investigations part of the exercise.
ICPC initiated the tracking in 2019 as a response to the dissatisfaction of Nigerians with the delivery of the constituency projects since the year 2000 for which billions of Naira were budgeted.
Before the current exercise, the agency had tracked about 4,000 projects valued at over N200bn.