Okechukwu (PDP, Enugu) rightly contended that there are lots of unsettling issues surrounding assets seized by the EFCC, especially the fact that they are mostly allowed to waste away, and are not properly accounted for. Among the assets mentioned by the legislator are over 200 mansions, hotels, bakeries, housing estates, schools, shopping malls, warehouses and about 400 cars, amounting to over N2 trillion. Regrettably, these assets are becoming dilapidated, and are not accounted for by the EFCC.
The House, with this probe, has focused on the critical issues of accountability, transparency and thrift in the handling of forfeited assets in the country. It is not good that assets that are seized both in Nigeria and abroad are allowed to rot away.
The anti-graft agency must be seen to deal with these assets in a fair, transparent and sustainable manner to ensure that the government and people of Nigeria from whom the assets were stolen derive benefits from them. It is inexpedient to allow seized assets to become dilapidated, and recovered cash not properly unaccounted for, as is the case now.
The Assets Forfeiture Unit of the EFCC set up in 2008 has a responsibility to ensure that all assets forfeited by corrupt persons through the EFCC are identifiable, verifiable and properly managed. It does not serve any purpose to allow the assets that are mostly seized from prominent Nigerians such as former state governors and chief executives of distressed banks to fall into disrepair. Apart from the needless wastage, a situation in which such assets are not properly accounted for promotes corruption, which may see such seized items re-looted by unconscionable anti-graft officials.
It is, therefore, necessary to have a proper record of the items and the definite terms for their use while corruption cases involving them are still on, and later, when the persons involved in such cases are convicted. The opacity of the use to which the seized items may be put is largely responsible for their abandonment and subsequent dilapidation.
It also contributes to reported cases of breaches of the seal of the EFCC on the items, and the attempts at their unlawful and forceful repossession by the persons from whom they were seized. The neglect of these properties and the failure to hand them over to professional property managers who would use them to generate further income fuel attempts to repossess them illegally by persons either standing trial for corruption, or already convicted for the crime.
This situation is probably responsible for recent reports that huge sums of money and other assets amounting to N191 billion purportedly recovered from the former Managing Director of the defunct Oceanic Bank, Mrs. Cecilia Ibru, under a plea-bargain deal after she pleaded guilty to mismanagement of shareholders’ money, are still directly or indirectly under her custody.
Many Nigerians and Non-Governmental Organisations, including Anti-Corruption Network, have called on the Police and EFCC to account for these assets to no avail. Worse still, as Okechukwu also noted, is that the employees of seized companies lose their jobs. If experts are engaged by the EFCC to run such companies in a professional manner, the companies will not collapse and their employees will not be thrown into unemployment. Beyond the issues of neglect and dilapidation of seized assets, however, is the use to which huge sums recovered from financial criminals have been put.
For many years now, the EFCC has regaled Nigerians with stories of billions of naira recovered from convicted persons in its campaign against corruption in the country. The location of such monies and the use to which they are being put are mostly shrouded in mystery. Efforts to locate some of the funds informed a recent directive by Justice Mohammed Idris of the Federal High Court, Lagos, to the EFCC, to furnish a petitioner, Mr. Boniface Okezie of the Progressive Shareholders Association of Nigeria (PSAN), details of properties recovered from Mrs. Cecilia Ibru.
One thing that is clear is that the huge sums and other assets recovered from persons involved in corruption cases are not being properly handled. To halt this trend, the House of Representatives Committee on Drugs, Narcotics and Corruption should expedite investigation of the handling of the recovered assets. The management of these assets should not only be investigated, there should be a proper audit of the properties, the result of which should be made public.
Forfeited assets of convicted persons should be advertised and sold to interested Nigerians so that money obtained from such sales can be deposited into government coffers, possibly, with the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Company (NDIC) or the Assets Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) to facilitate payment to individuals, banks and other institutions from which money was stolen.
The government should also set up a body to be charged with the verification of all forfeited assets, and their efficient management, to ensure that they do go to into disrepair. Recovered cash and other property should be professionally and profitably managed by experts, who must be accountable to the government.
Culled: sunnewsonline
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