The House of Representatives on Thursday resolved to constitute an ad-hoc committee to identify, recover public funds seized, forfeited, and abandoned in the nation’s financial institutions and government agencies and to appraise the Federal Government’s current policy framework, to ascertain who authorised the seizures, who keep the seized funds and for what duration.
The resolution followed the adoption of a motion on the need to identify and recover public funds seized, forfeited and abandoned in financial institutions and government agencies to improve the current economic challenges in Nigeria sponsored by Hon. Dachung Bagos at plenary.
In addition, it demanded the statement of account for a period covering 10 years, proffered measures to curb revenue losses and identify, analyse all funds trapped in other banks, funds recovered so far by CBN, ERCC, NFIU and other agencies and report back within four weeks
While moving the motion, the lawmaker noted that the proceeds of crime act was enacted to provide for an effective legal and institutional framework for the recovery and management of the proceeds of crime, strengthen criminal confiscation procedure, and collaborate among the relevant organizations in tracing properties reasonably suspected to be proceeds of unlawful activities.
He pointed out that under Section 69 of the aforesaid states, all recovered monies, as well as proceeds from the sale of confiscated assets, shall be paid into the Central Bank of Nigeria as confiscated and forfeited properties account for the Federation.
According to him, “Aware that CBN grant permission to Money Transfer Service Operations (MTSO) for both inbound and outbound transfers and that sometimes monies are trapped in the coffers of the CBN and other financial institutions. Despite having at least 12 institutions and agencies responsible for tackling illicit financial flow (IF) and related crimes, Nigeria continues to be menaced by weak regulatory structures and complicity of other financial secrecy, among others.”
He further stressed that all recovered Funds from the investigation of the federal government agencies like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), funds recovered through whistle-blowing, all funds seized by CBN, funds left by the deceased bank customers, funds trapped in banks, forfeiture, exhibits, proceed of frauds terrorism, drugs, etc, are stacked in places not known and are not accounted for to the public.
He added that while the National Assembly has made considerable efforts by making enactments “Such as the Proceeds of Crime Act which has introduced some laudable provisions to realign the fight against corruption and financial crimes with International best practices, the lack of enforcement has rendered these efforts futile.
When the motion was unanimously supported by members when it was put into voice vote by the Speaker Hon Tajudeen Abbas.
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