NLC blames nation’s economic woes on corruption

By  PETER DURU
MAKURDI — The Benue State Chairman of the Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, Comrade Simon Anchaver, has blamed the country’s worsening economic problems to corruption in high places, which he said was not being fought with vigour.

Anchaver, who  spoke at a symposium organised for workers in the state, urged the Federal Government to take concrete steps to check corruption among public officers in the country.

He lamented the high rate of corruption in the private and public sectors of the nation’s economy, pointing out that the fact that the investigation and prosecution of the immediate past speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Dimeji Bankole and the former Minister of Works, Alhaji Hassan Lawal, came after they had left government, showed that the anti-corruption programme of the government needed to be strengthened.

“It is time for the Federal Government to do a complete re-appraisal of its anti-corruption programmes in order to make it more proactive to confront the challenges of corrupt practices in the country”, he said, warning that unless this was done, the country would continue to lose resources meant for  development to few corrupt individuals.

‘’If this is not done, it might be difficult for government to implement the new minimum wage because resources meant for the implementation of government policies and programmes would end up in private pockets,” he said even as he urged the anti- graft agencies to sharpen their monitoring mechanism so as to check the menace.