The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, yesterday, revealed that it recovered looted funds totalling N473billion in 2017. Also, the agency gave the recovered fund in foreign denominations to include; $98,258,124.97; £294,851.82; €7,247,363.75; 443,400 Dirham and 70,500 Rand.
Similarly, the anti-graft body, during the period under review, secured final forfeiture of the Osborne Towers, Ikoyi cash of $43million as well as N32billion; $5million recovered from a former Petroleum Resources Minister, Diezani Allison-Madueke and recovered N449million at Legico Plaza, Victoria Island, Lagos. EFCC’s acting chair, Ibrahim Magu, made the revelations during the commission’s 2018 budget defence before the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Crimes.
He also acknowledged that identified whistle blowers, including that on Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, were being paid timely to encourage other Nigerians key into the campaign against corruption, even as he said the $43million Osborne Towers cash was forfeited to the federal government because it was not claimed by anyone.
The commission’s boss expressed dismay that the agency’s 2018 budget proposal of N45billion was slashed to about N21billion, saying this was capable of hindering its activities for the year. When asked by the Kayode Oladele-led Committee whether the Osborne cash was traced to anyone, Magu explained that the document recovered from the property where the money was kept and recovered, revealed that it belonged to a company owned by the wife and son of a former Director General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ayo Oke.
But after due diligence, and no one came forward to claim it, the court had to pronounce its final forfeiture, the EFCC boss said. Speaking further on the recovered funds by the anti-graft body, he said over N329billion was recovered from petroleum marketers by the Kano office of the Commission; withholding tax recovery of over N27.7billion from banks; €6.6million recovered from Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA); recoveries of about N1.1billion on behalf of AMCON; and recovery of subsidy fraud funds of over N4billion among others. Commenting on the 2017 budget implementation, the EFCC boss lamented the delay in fund releases, which according to him, affected the commission’s operations. He said: “Delayed and irregular release of the overhead component of the recurrent vote affected the commission’s investigation and prosecution activities, especially in the zones.
“Out of the total sum of total sum of N17,202,253,360 appropriated in 2017, only N11,737,492,342.07 or 68 percent has so far been released out of which N9,759,277,008.53 has been utilised. “From the sum of N7,127,316,354 appropriated for personnel, N6,533,373,324 was released; from N3,000,713,298 appropriated for overhead only N1,667,007,163.70 has been released while from N7,074,223,708 appropriated for capital expenditure, only N3,537,111,853.87 was released to the commission so far.”
On the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), he told the committee that “in the course of the outgoing financial year, the NFIU was granted self-accounting status by both the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation and the Budget Office. Effective date of implementation is 1st January, 2018 with a budget proposal of N2.903billion.” And out of this sum, N339.350 million was proposed for personnel cost; N22.500million for meals and refreshment to cater for numerous sub-regional, national and internal meetings while N26.500million was proposed for publicity and advertisement for stakeholders in the financial sector.
