A former Permanent Secretary of the Federation Civil Service Commission, Goke Adeboroye, has cited reasons why the commission failed to detect a fake presidential agency that allegedly penetrated government
According to him, this exposes significant weaknesses in the country’s bureaucratic system
His statement comes as the ICPC uncovered a fake government agency, the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), which allegedly operated with forged appointment letters and other official documents.
The commission said that the agency had no legal basis and its purported Director-General, Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew, was never appointed by the Federal Government.
Another phoney agency, known as the National Brands Development and Made in Nigeria Special Project Office, was also discovered on Friday and was said to be operating within the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.
In reaction, Adeboroye said the incident raised serious questions about how an individual could allegedly gain entry into the government system, secure an appointment, access budgetary provisions and obtain office space without the relevant authorities detecting the irregularities.
“The exposure of that fake presidential agency is a major lapse to say that somebody can actually come into the system, get in on the budget, get offices, and all of that,” he said during an interview on Channels Television’s Inside Sources
Speaking on the implications of the incident, Adeboroye identified weaknesses in the bureaucratic capacity of key offices within the Presidency and government, including the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the Office of the Chief of Staff to the President and the Office of the Head of the Civil Service.
He said the bureaucracy supporting these offices must be sufficiently capable of helping the President implement his policies while also providing the necessary checks to prevent fraudulent or unlawful directives from gaining effect.
“The bureaucracy in those offices are not strong enough to be able to help the President drive the vision at the speed and with the efficiency that he wants,” Adeboroye said.
According to him, the incident also highlights the delicate relationship between political office holders and career civil servants. While political appointees serve as principals to the bureaucracy and issue directives, he said civil servants must have the professional competence and personal integrity to question instructions that do not conform with established procedures.
“The political office holders are principals to the bureaucracy, and a lot of times, the bureaucracy takes directives from them,” he said.
“You need a bureaucracy that is not just professional; that’s, you know, the capacity, and the commitment to the system is also driven by his own or her own personal integrity.”
Adeboroye also noted that civil servants working within government should be able to identify suspicious communications purportedly originating from the Presidency because they are familiar with the established channels through which presidential approvals are transmitted.
“Whether the person brings fake or whatever, you as the civil servant should be trained to be able to detect what should be a genuine communication from the State House. You work in that system,” he said.
He explained that presidential approvals ordinarily pass through established channels involving senior government officials.
“When the President approves anything, he always minutes to about three people. He goes to the Chief of Staff, he goes to SGF, and if he has something to do with civil service, the Head of Service will have it,” he said.
Adeboroye said the existence of these channels should make it possible for officials to verify questionable directives before acting on them, adding that the failure to do so in the fake agency case points to a breakdown in the system’s internal checks.
Adeboroye noted that officials did not necessarily require a complicated process to establish whether the purported directive was genuine, noting that a simple call to the relevant office could have exposed the discrepancy.
“I could pick up a phone, call any minister, call this. It’s just a phone call from the office of whoever to say, Chief of Staff, is this true? And that would have actually corrected it,” he said.
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