Senate to amend EFCC laws for better operations

Chairman, Senate Committee AntiCorruption, Sen. Chukwuka Utazi has commended the efforts of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in the fight against corruption.

He also charged the acting chairman of the agency Ibrahim Magu to redouble effort to save Nigeria from corruption cankerworm.

A statement yesterday by the acting spokesman of the Commission Tony Orilade said Utazi made the commendation during the committee’s oversight function to the commission at its new on headquarters, Jabi Abuja.

Senator Utazi, who listened to the EFCC acting chairman as he rolled out the performance of the agency in the last 11 months, said “we will amend the EFCC Act to ensure that certain percentage of your recoveries will be retained to improve on the quality of the Commission’s assignments”.

Earlier,Magu gave the detail of monetary final forfeiture for the last 11 months to include: N12. 75bn; $175, 077.81, and £597, 353.65

The chairman, who said the commission recorded unprecedented over 240 convictions between January and now, also gave record of summary of final forfeited assets to include: 116 automobiles, 5 bank accounts, 15 land, 21 Real Estate and thee Equipment/Machinery. Assets forfeited under interim are: 25 automobiles, 39 bank accounts, four filling stations, 47 real estates, two vessels one tugboat, one hotel, one barge and four shops.

Magu, however, lamented that of the N12.7bn appropriated for the commission’s personnel cost for the fiscal year, only N6.7bn (53.06%) has been released.

Similarly, he said the sum of N3.6bn was appropriated for Over Head. Of this amount only N1. 650 billion representing 45.83 percent has been released.