Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau State has welcomed the 2nd Corruption Survey Report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) which ranked his State as the second least corrupt State in the country.
Lalong, while reacting to the report, said the development validates the efforts of his ‘Rescue Administration’ towards entrenching good governance, accountability and transparency in management of public funds.
According to him, “On assuming office, I declared my administration’s zero tolerance to corruption and our determination to ensure that public funds are used strictly for the benefit of the people of Plateau.”
This, he said led him to establish various mechanisms for checking corruption and enhancing transparency in public service.
“We were among the first state in Nigeria to adopt the Treasury Single Account (TSA) where we made sure all monies accruing to Plateau State went to a single account for easy oversight and monitoring.
“We also established the Efficiency Unit that is saddled with the duty of checking all proposals and requests to ensure that they are in line with the vision of the Government and offer value for the people.
“We put in place the Bureau for Public Procurement which has the mandate of vetting all procurements to ensure that there is no wasteful and exaggerated costs,” he explained.
The Governor also explained that recently, he set up the Project Monitoring and Result Delivery Unit (PMRDU) domiciled in the Office of the Chief of Staff with clear mandate to ensure diligent tracking of Projects and Programmes implementation by all the MDAs.
“In addition, the State has greatly improved the ease of doing business through the creation of the One-Stop-Shop as well as enhancing land transactions through the Strengthening of the Plateau Geographic Information Systems (PLAGIS) to operate electronically.”
The Governor further stated that all the aforementioned have contributed in the increase in revenue generation as most transactions of the State are done electronically thereby removing the incentives for corruption.
“This declaration by the NBS of Plateau State as the second least corrupt State in Nigeria is great news for us as it explains why domestic and foreign investors, and foreign envoys are pouring into our State to do business and partner with us for various development efforts. In the last two weeks, I received the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, investors from Switzerland, Austria and Germany and just this morning, the Political Counselor at the US Embassy was in my office.
“We shall continue to make sure that we sustain this tempo and by the grace of God, Plateau State will be the least corrupt State in Nigeria when this survey is conducted next year,” the Governor stressed.
