Governor Lalong of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was elected into office last May and like President Muhammadu Buhari, he has made the fight against corruption one of the mainstays of his governorship. He pointed out that his government would act if the EFCC and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) wasted time in prosecuting suspected offenders.
“Very soon, if they are not ready to prosecute, we will prosecute then as we have ministry of justice. If they delay with the investigation we will prosecute.
"We will prosecute people as we have the machinery to also prosecute. We don’t want to have conflict with EFCC and ICPC but if they delay and we see very clear facts, we would do that,” Governor Lalong added.
He said that the state government had engaged the services of an international auditing firm, KPMG, who audited the accounts of the state government and found discrepancies, which had been reported. According to Governor Lalong, the report of the transition committee, which was set up before the inception of his administration, has been sent to the anti-graft agencies.
Governor Lalong appealed to the anti-graft agencies to hasten their investigations to enable the state government to recover funds allegedly stolen by former state government officials. He also decried the abuse of local government joint accounts by some governors, saying he does not interfere with funds meant for local governments in the state.
“I heard stories that in some states what they do is that when the money comes, they collapse it into one account and decide what goes into each local government. I fought against it as a speaker, I cannot be part of it, so when the money comes, it is meant for the local government,” Governor Lalong added.
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