By Kenneth Onuoha
Enugu Labour leaders on Thursday, February 12, 2021, pledged to fight corruption by scrutinising council budgets and projects within the state.
They gave this assurance at a one-day workshop tagged, “Roundtable Dialogue: Situating the Unions to Redefine Public Service Sector for Improved Efficiency, Transparency and Accountability’’.
Chairman, Trade Union Congress (TUC), Enugu State chapter, Mr Ben Asogwa, said that the labour unions were ready to partner Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in their quest to tackle corruption at the council area level.
Asogwa said the workshop was timely and added that they were “ready to partner with sincere CSOs to ensure that corruption leading to projects abandonment at the council areas would be a thing of the past.
“Corruption is increasing in the country and we cannot continue to watch while our common patrimony is being squandered by a few corrupt individuals.
“Things cannot continue this way and it is in the interest of our future and generations unborn to fight and kick-out corruption in the state.
“We are ready to partner with serious and sincere CSOs to tackle corruption leading to budget misappropriation and outright projects abandonment especially in our council areas,’’ he said.
On his part, the Chairman, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Enugu State chapter, Mr. Virginus Nwobodo, said corruption remained the bane of development at all levels of government.
“There is a need to have collective and concerted efforts to deal with corruption, especially the ones perpetrated at the council level,” he said.
Earlier, the Convener of ‘Say No Campaign’, Mr Ezenwa Nwagwu, challenged labour leaders to rise up and ask questions on council area’s budgets and projects and follow it up to a logical conclusion.
According to Nwagwu, “our roles as labour leaders in improving the quality of governance and service delivery cannot be over emphasised.
”We have a responsibility to deliver our duty with utmost diligence and to guide the government to live up to its mandate. We simply cannot fail.
”It is important that we become more intentional in working to uplift our society and our people even those in rural areas.
”Being in the system, we can bring so much value to citizen oversight of government projects and initiatives, in a way that benefits the society.
”If we are altruistic, through our efforts we can curb the plague of abandoned projects, shabby budget implementation and diversion of public funds.
”But we can only achieve this if we decide to take personal responsibility in carrying out our duties,’’ he said.
In his presentation, the Deputy Country Director, Mac-Arthur Foundation, Mr Dayo Olaide, noted that “corruption holds back progress of democracy’’ and people from benefiting from democratic dividends.
”As a people, we must rise to stop corruption and its threat to our existence and the generation unborn.
”It is the responsibility of all to be able to say no to corruption and stand out for the truth and integrity,’’ Olaide said.
The workshop was organised by Say No Campaign and supported by Mac-Arthur Foundation.