ICPC Begins Workforce Audit to Address Personnel Imbalance

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) is to undertake a comprehensive audit of its workforce and structure to address personnel imbalances and ensure effective deployment of staff in line with its anti-corruption mandate.

The ICPC Chairman, Dr Musa Adamu Aliyu, SAN, disclosed this while inaugurating the Commission’s Workforce and Structural Audit Committee.

Aliyu said the exercise would provide a verifiable basis for determining the workforce structure, skills and personnel deployment required for the Commission to effectively carry out its responsibilities.

He said the audit was one of the most consequential internal exercises being undertaken by the Commission, given the need to align its personnel strength with its operational requirements.

According to him, recruitment into the ICPC had been irregular since the Commission was established in 2000 and recruited its first 88 officers in 2002, with no deliberate policy to ensure a coherent progression of its workforce.

The situation, he said, had created imbalances, including a disproportionate concentration of middle and senior-level officers in some areas at the expense of operational personnel.

Aliyu said the committee would compare the Commission’s approved structure with its actual workforce, deployment and operational demands to identify gaps and recommend appropriate interventions.

He stressed that the exercise must be driven by evidence and not assumptions, directing the committee to rely on institutional records such as case-tracking data, court schedules and petition registers in determining workforce requirements.

The chairman also cautioned against using numerical ratios alone to determine the appropriate workforce structure, saying the complexity of cases handled by the anti-graft agency and the specialised expertise required must also be considered.

He further called for a stronger law-enforcement culture within the Commission, insisting that its institutional identity must consistently reflect its statutory responsibility as an anti-corruption and law-enforcement agency.

“The ICPC is a law-enforcement agency, and our culture must reflect that in full. We cannot claim to be law enforcement when it suits us, and conduct ourselves as a core Civil Service establishment when that suits us instead,” Aliyu said.

He added that the Commission could no longer operate with what he described as an institutional identity crisis, stressing that its personnel and operations must consistently reflect its law-enforcement mandate.

The chairman, however, clarified that the audit was not aimed at victimising staff or reducing the workforce.

Rather, he said, the exercise was intended to ensure effective deployment, strengthen institutional capacity and establish a merit-based workforce structure capable of supporting the Commission’s mandate.

The Secretary to the Commission, Mr Clifford Okwudiri Oparaodu, DSSRS, commended Aliyu for initiating the exercise, saying strengthening the Commission’s institutional capacity was essential to its continued effectiveness.

Oparaodu urged members of the committee to approach the assignment with commitment and ensure that its objectives were achieved.

He also called on them to support the chairman and management in developing practical and sustainable measures that would strengthen the Commission and leave a lasting institutional legacy.

Responding on behalf of the committee members, the Director of Planning, Research and Statistics and chairman of the committee thanked the Commission for the confidence reposed in them.

He pledged that members would bring integrity and expertise to the assignment and ensure that the exercise was conducted in line with its objectives.