CCB to penalize FCTA workers for failing to declare assets

The Code of Conduct Bureau has cautioned Federal Capital Territory Administration employees that failure to rigorously abide by the Code of Conduct governing public service by declaring their assets will result in fines.

Suleiman Usman, the state director of the CCB for the FCT, gave the warning on Thursday during a one-day awareness campaign in Abuja.

As government offices are held in trust on behalf of the people, he instructed the staff to guarantee prompt and accurate reporting of their assets for transparency and accountability reasons.

Usman said that many public employees are still uninformed about some of the pertinent information and behaviors expected of them in their jobs, which leads to their unintentional normalization of systemic illegalities.

Additionally, he deplored the practice of public employees working outside of regular business hours and issued a warning that the bureau would take action against any employee who violated this policy after being reported, looked into by the committee of the Bureau, and found guilty.

“We are here to educate the FCT Administration’s civil workers on the value of asset disclosure and to make sure that there is complete compliance. We also informed them of the public officials’ code of conduct so that they would be aware of the dos and don’ts in addition to their duties.

He explained: “We stipulated that federal workers must not engage in direct managing of private business, if they want to operate private firms. The Bureau has a committee that examines and takes the required measure.

Dr. Jummai Ahmadu, the FCTA’s acting director for reform coordination and service improvement, also spoke at the event and noted that the bureau regularly conducts awareness campaigns across the nation to reaffirm the importance of civil servants declaring their assets every four years.

She said that by providing people with comprehensive instructions on how to report their assets, the FCT Administration will make conscious efforts to ensure that they are aware of what is expected of them.