FG living true to 'Change Begins With Me'

ITRealms:

The President, Muhammadu Buhari and his entire cabinet has been living true to the national re-orientation campaign ''Change Begins With Me'' according to Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information and Culture, reports ITRealms.

The Minister said, Thursday in Lagos, that President Buhari demonstrated that change begins with him when he rejected the purchase of new vehicles upon assumption of office and also directed his convoy not to break traffic rules.

''The President demonstrated leadership when he rejected the purchase of new vehicles for his use, thus saving 400 million Naira. Thanks to his action, no Minister purchased new vehicles, saving millions more. Then upon assuming office, the President instructed his convoy to always respect traffic rules. The Ministers all followed suit. Today Ministers queue up at airports and filling stations. Their lifestyle is devoid of any ostentation. The Federal Executive Council is not left behind. The weekly FEC Meeting starts on time. Indeed, change started with us a long time ago,'' he said.

Alhaji Mohammed explained that the campaign was actually designed to start from the President, Vice President, Ministers and other top government officials and then cascade down to all citizens, adding: ''It is therefore wrong to see it as an attempt to saddle ordinary citizens with any burden without a commensurate effort from the leadership.''

Giving the reason for the campaign, he said it was aimed at ''achieving a paradigm shift in the way we do things'',

''In simple parlance, it is geared towards achieving an attitudinal change. As they say, you cannot continue to do things the same way and expect a different result. Against the background that our core values have witnessed a total breakdown in the past years, it is imperative that we re-orientate ourselves with a view to restoring those time-tested values.

''Some critics have wondered why we are launching this campaign at this time. They say Nigerians are hungry and need food, not campaign. What they don't realize is that part of the reason we have found ourselves in this sorry pass is our attitude. Our fetish for consumption of imported goods has helped to deplete our foreign reserves, part of the reasons our local currency is now very weak, with dire consequences. Our preference for foreign goods against the ones we produce has been detrimental to our manufacturing companies, leading to loss of jobs. Of course without jobs, our ability to feed or meet our daily obligations is affected.

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NITDA establishes ACTU unit, trains staff on ‘Change Begins with Me’ campaign

ITRealms:

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) in effort to boost transparency and accountability among personnel, on Thursday concluded a two-day workshop on “Change Begins with Me” campaign of the federal government, just as it has establish Anti-Corruption and Transparent Unit (ACTU) reports ITRealms.

The workshop, ITRealms gathered, was aimed at increasing the capacity of the NITDA management staff on trust, ethics and integrity in the workplace by acting as apostles of morality and integrity to their subordinate.  

Declaring the workshop open in Abuja on 21st September, 2016, the NITDA Acting Director General, Dr Vincent Olatunji said the agency aligned into the directive  of Independent Corrupt Practices (and Other Related Offences) Commission (ICPC) to establish Anti Corruption and Transparent Unit in NITDA to prevent corrupt practices.

“We have established ACTU unit to eliminate all traces of corruption in NITDA because we believe that it corruption that has led us to where we are today,” he said.

Expressing optimism that there is something in this country that international community is looking for, stressing that Nigerians in various agencies of government have to change orientation and mindset on corruption to attract them to invest in the country.

He assured that NITDA as an IT agency would look inward for ICT tools that could be used to help prevent or better still eliminate corrupt practices in the country.

“Charity begins at home and as an IT Agency, any tool we deploy in curbing corruption will be handed down to government because ICT is an effective tool that could be used in the fight against corruption,” he said. 

Speaking earlier, the Acting Head of Human Resource and Administration, Mr. Ayodeji Eniola said the agency has been supporting the government’s effort in curbing corruption in the public sector and part of the efforts is periodic training of its member staff on anti corruption crusades.

The representative of ICPC chairman, Mr. Lawal Akeem said there is need for urgent intervention in curbing corruption as it is related more to public service, adding that any corrupt act being carried out by public sector official have negative impact on governance.

We truncate on the procedure most of the time and it brings about leakage in the system. The outcome of which affects everybody. We need to set machineries in motion to strategically prevent corruption in all spheres of our activities.

He disclosed that ICPC is empowered to look at procedure of doing things in public service adding that ACTU is setup to stop escalation of what can lead to corruption which on the long run would have reduce the unethical practices by 60 per cent.

He commended NITA and the ACTU NITDA for organizing the workshop for the management staff. “Leadership matter in whatever we do. For organizing this training, we are laying a transparent path for our followers to follow and this is the direction to go and as commission, we assure you of any necessary support you can need in your drive of curbing corruption in your Agency.

The NITDA ACTU Chairman, Mr.  Sarafa Lawal thanked the management and staff for turning up for the training, while urging them to ensure that the objective of the training was not defected by not engaging themselves in unholy acts that could impact negatively on the their personalities and the corporate image of the agency. 

Nenye Dom with additional report from Lukman Oladokun/GEE

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