NAN-H-51
Integrity
By Lizzy Agbaji
Abuja, Oct. 28, 2016 (NAN) The Executive Director, Victim Support Fund (VSF), Prof. Sunday Ocheche, on Friday said the foundation has infused integrity and confidence in its operations to gain international donor agencies confidence.
Ocheche told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja that the foundation had been very prudent in utilising the funds for the actual victims of insurgencies.
According to him, such steps will further elicit the hope and trust of international donor agencies in the foundation, thus encouraging them to render financial and relief support.
The VSF is set up to identify, among others, sources and ways of raising sustainable funding to support victims of Boko Haram insurgents and ascertain the persons, communities, facilities and economic assets affected by the terror activities.
He said that international organisations had previously regarded Nigerians as fraudulent and uses Non-Governmental Organisations as platforms to make money for their selfish interest.
“The Victim Support Fund is a reputable foundation that was set up to assist in meeting the needs of the victims of terror and we are very professional in our activities.
“We also realise the importance of assistance from well-meaning Nigerians and the international community; and that we have to work along with them.
“To gain their trusts, we need to demonstrate a high level of integrity, by judiciously utilising the funds for what they have been realised for.
“It’s about time Nigerians desist from using the plight of people to make money for themselves, and correct whatever wrong notion international organisations have formed.
“We, in the foundation, are working for the continuity of the purpose for which the fund was established and not for it to fold up just like that.
“We ensure that we touch the lives of those affected by terror, and to rebuild their hope,’’ Ocheche told NAN.
He said the foundation was in consultation with the Tony Blair Foundation to get its assistance in the rehabilitation of the victims of insurgency in the country.
Ocheche said the high rate of human and infrastructural destruction in the North-East requires the collaboration of well-meaning Nigerians, including foreign donor agencies, to reconstruct and reintegrate the victims. (NAN)
LIZ/FLP/IS
=======
Edited by Folorunso Poroye/Ismail Abdulaziz