As a way of preventing and addressing incidences of corruption in the public service, the North-West Regional Office of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) on Tuesday 28th May 2024 engaged staff of the National Social Security and Insurance Trust (NASSIT) in Port Loko on corruption prevention and maintaining integrity in the exercise of their functions and operations.
Welcoming the ACC Team, Regional Manager for NASSIT Sylvanus N. Blake described the engagement as timely particularly when the Trust is currently addressing various public concerns and the need to collaborate with the Commission to addressing same. He went on to state that such collaboration will significantly help them to mainstream anti-corruption measures in their operations and to also guide staff in maintaining best practices in their functions. In his response to concerns relating to delay in payment, Mr. Blake noted that members of the scheme most times do not update their records which significantly pose a serious challenge in regularizing their statuses and payments altogether. He provided an explicit explanation on how the Trust handles members information, the procedure for payment to retirees and other beneficiaries, compliance issues and the role of the Public Relations Department.
The Regional Manager, ACC North West, Fatu Florence Kamara in her brief statement underscored the significance of maintaining integrity and enhancing best practices as public officers. Manager Kamara pointed out that the engagement was as a result of concerns from the public relating to the Trust's functions and operations. Quite recently, she underscored, the ACC conducted a risk assessment on policy issues relating to Finance, Procurement, Monitoring and Evaluation, Internal Audit as well as mainstreaming anti-corruption policies in the operations of the Trust thereby, identifying administrative weaknesses and system gaps or any action that may amount to blatant acts of corruption.
Commenting on key corruption issues in public bodies, the Regional Head encouraged Management and Staff to put together a functional and operational Integrity Management Committee (IMC) that will internalize the fight against corruption and address other corruption opportunities, and urged them to quickly address issues appertaining to non-payment of gratuities/pensions to retirees, delays of payment to next of kins, sick members and other beneficiaries, and how they update institutions on non-payment of dues.
She urged them to maintain high ethical standards and desist from any act that will amount to soliciting and accepting advantage, abuse of office and position, misappropriation of public funds amongst others.
ACC NORTH WEST OFFICE
