COMMUNIQUE: CAPACITY BUILDING WORKSHOP ON THE LAW AND POLICY OF ASSETS AND LIABILITIES DECLARATION FRAMEWORK

March 25, 2020

COMMUNIQUE

CAPACITY BUILDING WORKSHOP ON THE LAW AND POLICY OF ASSETS AND LIABILITIES DECLARATION FRAMEWORK

1. PREAMBLE

A two-day capacity building workshop on engaging Nigeria’s Assets and Liabilities Declaration Framework (ALDF) was held at Top Rank Hotel Galaxy in Abuja on Monday, March 23 and Tuesday, March 24, 2020 by Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) with support from the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) as part of a series of activities aimed at reforming Nigeria’s Assets Declaration Framework. Participation was drawn from civil society organisations and the media.

The workshop examined the current constitutional, legal and institutional framework as well as policies relating to the declaration of assets and liabilities by public officials with a view to identifying the reforms needed to make the process more efficient and effective. It also assessed emerging global practice in other countries as well as regional and international frameworks. Presentations were made on the Code of Conduct for Public Officers under the 1999 Constitution as amended; Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act – A Critical Review; Online Assets and Liabilities Declarations – the Comparative and Nigerian Contexts; Review of the Assets and Liabilities Declaration Form; Funding the Code of Conduct Bureau; Public Access to Declared Information and Protection of the Privacy of Public Officers.

2. OBSERVATIONS

The participants observed as follows:

(i) Nigeria’s Assets and Liabilities Declaration Framework (ALDF) is founded on national and international laws and policies including the Constitution, the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act, the United Nations Convention against Corruption, etc. It is designed to combat corruption, illicit enrichment and conflict of interest.

(ii) The constitutional Code of Conduct for Public Officers is wide and covers a lot of unethical challenges and if enforced in its letter and spirit, it will improve ethics in governance in Nigeria. However, the Code needs specific reforms.

(iii) The list of public officers bound to declare their assets and liabilities under the Fifth Schedule (Part II) to the Constitution is all encompassing, from the President of the Federal Republic to the cleaner in a local government and extends to the three arms of government in the executive, legislature and judiciary as well as the federal, state and local governments. It is estimated that not less than 5million Nigerians are required by law to declare their assets.

(iv) The current assets declaration system is manual and cumbersome and contains a jurat which requires the declaration to be made before a High Court Judge.

(v) Nigeria in the last ten years has been designing the Online Assets Declaration System (OADS) and a lot of public and development partner resources have been dedicated to this project. The advantages of the OADS are legion as shown by comparative experience.

(vi) The current assets and liabilities declaration form needs review and reforms to bring it into line with Nigerian’s commitments under a multiplicity of standards and comparative and international fit and good practices.

(vii) The Code of Conduct Bureau is poorly funded and is deprived of resources required to fully activate its mandate and perform the functions slated for it in the Constitution.

(viii) Nigerians are still denied access to the declaration of assets and liabilities of public officers despite the constitutional provisions of access and emerging jurisprudence from the recent Court of Appeal decision.

(ix) The current arrangement and operations of the Code of Conduct Tribunal as presently constituted are characterized by several weaknesses which affect its efficiency and effectiveness, including the composition of the Tribunal with a Chairman and only two members; the fact that the Chairman and a single member can form a quorum for the purpose of conducting proceedings; in such an event, where there is tie, the opinion of the Tribunal becomes difficult to discern; where the Chairman is unavailable, the Tribunal is rendered inoperative; and the Tribunal has only one chamber which sits in Abuja therefore making it expensive for non-Abuja based defendants to attend proceedings of the Tribunal.

(x) The current arrangement which makes the Code of Conduct Tribunal and its Chairman who exercise virtual judicial functions answerable to the Presidency undermines the integrity, credibility and effectiveness of the Tribunal and is therefore unacceptable.

3. RECOMMENDATIONS

The participants therefore recommended as follows:

(a) The full enforcement and observance of extant constitutional and statutory provisions on the Code of Conduct for Public Officers by the Code of Conduct Bureau and Public Officers.

(b) The National Assembly should consider amending the constitutional list of Public Officers for the purpose of assets and liabilities declaration to limit them to a realistic and manageable number based on the following criteria:

(1) Public officials obligated because of their position (that is, president, ministers, and so forth), and (2) public officials obligated because of their function (that is, those who grant permits, those who are responsible for administrating public or private assets or for controlling or supervising public revenues, and those who are members of commissions that oversee the issue of tenders or the purchase or receipt of assets

(c) The ALDF should be digitized in an Online Assets Declaration Framework and the jurat in the form should be converted to an attestation to remove the unnecessary process of going before a High Court Judge to make the declaration.

(d) The Code of Conduct Bureau should adopt the Online Assets Declaration System because of a plethora of benefits including ease of compliance for declarants, ease of managing the process for the Bureau, quality control and improving verification of declarations. Other advantages include improving inter agency collaboration, facilitating the realization of core objectives of the assets declaration framework as well as reducing the cost of running the system. The introduction of the OADS should be followed with sensitization and outreach programmes to stakeholders on the online system.

(e) The extant Assets and Liabilities Declaration Form is in need of reforms to include the following; arts and antique, jewelries, intellectual property, crypto currencies, beneficial ownership, previous employment history and board and principal officer positions in public and private companies, liabilities as well as Bank Verification Number, Tax Identification Number and National Identity Number.

(f) The National Assembly should consider constitutional and statutory amendments to improve the funding of the Code of Conduct Bureau through making their funding a first line charge and benchmarking the funding inter alia on the number of declarants bound to declare assets, the cost of verification and enforcement proceedings.

(g) In accordance with the decision of the Court of Appeal in the Code of Conduct Bureau & Ors v Nwankwo (2008) LPELR – 44762, the Courts are enjoined to use the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act and the Evidence Act to give Nigerians access to declarations of assets and liabilities by public officers.

(h) Further to the last paragraph, the Code of Conduct Bureau should embark on a consultative and participatory process with key stakeholder groups to develop and propose a Bill to the National Assembly to address the inadequacies and weaknesses in the current system. The draft Bill should outline the terms and conditions under which every citizen of Nigeria should have access to the Assets and Liabilities Declarations but should also take into consideration the need to protect the privacy of declarants.

(i) The Federal Government should establish a Code of Conduct Tribunal in each of the geo-political zones in the country to deal with cases emanating from the States in each zone. Each of the Tribunals should be composed of a Chairman and six other members. The quorum for the constitution of the Tribunal for the purpose of conducting proceedings shall be at least three members, with the most senior member present presiding. This may involve amending the requisite sections of the 1999 Constitution as amended.

4. CONCLUSION

The participants acknowledged the convening of Centre for Social Justice and the support of OSIWA and urged that this Communique be very widely disseminated.

Eze Onyekpere
Lead Director
Centre for Social Justice

Edetaen Ojo
Executive Director
Media Rights Agenda