Ibrahim Magu (FILE PHOTO)
The funds recovered according to him, include: N473,065,195,977.50; $98,258,124.97; £294,851.82; €7,247,363.75; Dirham 443, 400.00 and South African Rand 70,500.00.
The EFCC helmsman gave the figures when he appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Crimes, Chaired by Honourable Kayode Oladele for 2017 budget performance and 2018 budget defence.
Mr Magu in a document presented to the House Committee, part of the recovered money, he said, include, “final forfeiture of N32 billion and $5 million was recovers from Diezani Allison-Madueke, former Minister of Petroleum Resources; recovery and final forfeiture of N449 million at Legico Plaza in Victoria Island, Lagos and final forfeiture of over $43 million discovered in Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos.
“Recovery of N329 billion from petroleum marketers by the Commission’s Kano office; withholding tax recovery of over N27.7 billion from banks; €6.6 million recovered from Nigerian Ports Authority; recoveries of about N1.1 billion on behalf of AMCON; recovery of subsidy fraud funds of over N4 billion”, he stated.
In the fight against corruption, he told the committee that financial and operations autonomy has been granted to Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) saying 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. The effective date of implementation is 1st January 2018.”
On challenges facing the commission, he said that “delayed and irregular release of the overhead component of the recurrent vote affected the commission’s investigation and prosecution activities especially in the Zones.”
On the budget performance of the commission in 2017, he said that, out of the total sum of the total sum of N17,202,253,360 appropriated in 2017, only N11,737,492,342.07 (68%) has so far been released out of which N9,759,277,008.53 has been utilized.
He added that, 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 his part, NFIU Director, Francis Usani said that all security issues relating to the operations of NFIU have been put in place.
For its operations, he added that NFIU has the EGMONT secured website void of hacking.
On NFIU budget for 2018, he said, from the sum of N2.903 billion propose for 2018, N339.350 million is for personnel cost; N22.500 million is for meals and refreshment to cater for numerous sub-regional, national and internal meetings while the sum of N26.500 million is required for publicity and advertisement for stakeholders in the financial sector.
According to him,”We will continue to be committed in the NFIU to doing our best and remaining the champion FIU within the West African sub-region and Africa as a whole, and with the kind of support you have shown to us, we will remain focused in our mandate to support all LEAs in Nigeria and elsewhere in the world to fight against financial crimes and money laundering as well and terrorism financing.”
ALSO READ: ‘EFCC recovers N2bn in Rivers in 2017’
Some of the lawmakers at the budget presentation emphasized the need for an adequate budget for the commission and the NFIU to effectively function.
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