NITDA, ICPC establish task force for project compliance, anti-corruption in govt ICT investments

By Balarabe Oshiafi

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) have announced the creation of a Joint Task Force on Digital Governance and Anti-Corruption to tackle corruption risks associated with government IT projects, strengthen enforcement of the IT Project Clearance mandate, and ensure that technology becomes a tool for service delivery.

According to a press release signed by the agency’s Director of Corporate Communications, Mrs Hadiza Umar and ICPC’s Head, Media and Publicity, Dr (Mrs) Anike Adesina and made available to ExpressDay Newspaper on Saturday the announcement was made at the ICPC Headquarters in Abuja during a high-level courtesy call by the Director General of NITDA to the ICPC Chairman. The visit underscores the determination of both agencies to align their mandates in support of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda and his directive to build a $1 Trillion economy, powered by digital transformation, ease of doing business, and elimination of corruption as a barrier to growth.

Over the past two decades, billions of naira have been lost to either failed or abandoned government IT projects. Many Federal Public Institutions (FPIs) have procured technological solutions without proper clearance, leading to duplication of efforts, inflated costs, weak technical standards, and in many cases, total project failure.

A number of these projects, often worth billions of naira individually, have either failed to deliver value to citizens or were abandoned after partial implementation. Others have become avenues for corruption through contract splitting, use of unregistered contractors, and deliberate circumvention of due process.

This pattern has not only wasted scarce public resources but also eroded public trust in the government’s ability to digitize services, improve transparency, and reduce the cost of governance.

The NITDA IT Project Clearance process was designed to address these risks by ensuring that government IT projects are properly vetted, aligned with national standards, interoperable, and provide value for money. However, compliance has remained a challenge, with some FPIs and contractors attempting to bypass the process. This non-compliance has been identified by ICPC as a corruption risk that requires enforcement.

The Joint Task Force will serve as an enforcement mechanism, combining NITDA’s technical oversight role with ICPC’s investigative and prosecutorial powers. Its mandate will include:

Enforcement of IT Clearance: Ensuring all FPIs obtain mandatory IT Project Clearance before embarking on technology projects, with ICPC providing enforcement where violations occur;

Monitoring and Sanctioning: Jointly monitoring IT projects and sanctioning defaulting FPIs, in accordance with extant regulations; and

Integration of Enforcement Tools: Embedding NITDA’s monitoring instruments into ICPC frameworks such as the System Study & Review, the Ethics & Integrity Scorecard, and other anti-corruption tools to institutionalize compliance.

The Director General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa, stressed the importance of IT Project Clearance as a national safeguard, designed to track Government spending in IT, ensure synergy in national investments in IT and prevent development of projects in silos where significant resources can be shared by FPIs. That the IT clearance regulation is designed to ensure that IT projects are properly conceptualized and executed in line with global best practices, ensuring value-for-money investments, reducing duplication, and creating a unified digital government.