THISDAY

Saraki Accuses Anti-graft Agencies of Looting Recovered Funds, Property

- Damilola Oyedele in Abuja

The Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, yesterday accused anti-graft agencies of looting funds and property recovered from corrupt persons and said this untoward act was the major reason why foreign countries harbouring monies stolen from Nigeria had refused to return them to the country.

"The National Assembly has been strident about the opacity shrouding the management of recovered funds, which in many cases get re-looted by the agencies that investigat­ed and recovered them," he said while declaring open, the Strategic Retreat on Tracking the Progress of Anti-corruption Bills in the National Assembly.

According to the Senate president, the foreign countries harbouring funds looted from Nigeria are reluctant to return such monies, over fears that the returned assets may be mismanaged.

He said: "Nigeria is finding it difficult to convince other nations to return funds looted from our treasury. This is because of the other nations' exasperati­on over the management of returned assets. Only recently, Mr. President inaugurate­d a committee to audit all assets recovered by various government agencies."

Saraki cited a motion last week, seeking to expand the scope of the investigat­ion of the scandal of the re-instatemen­t and return to the civil service of former Chairman of the Pension Task Team, Mr. Abdulrashe­ed Maina, to include investigat­ions of allegation­s that recovered properties had been re-looted by officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

"An ad-hoc committee of the Senate, which is investigat­ing some administra­tive infraction­s in the Executive, has discovered that many properties recovered from a fugitive from the law, have not been accounted for by the investigat­ing agency," Saraki said.

The developmen­t, he added, gives great concern to the internatio­nal community, about Nigeria's commitment to the anti-corruption drive.

“We must work hard to erase this global impression because it is not a representa­tion of who we are,” the Senate president said.

He expressed the commitment of the Senate to ensure that all anti-corruption related bills, including the Proceeds of Crime Bill, were passed into laws without delay.

The Money Laundering Prevention Bill is being delayed after stakeholde­rs raised very serious constituti­onal issues, which have been forwarded to the Executive to iron out, Saraki explained.

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Anti-corruption and Financial Crimes, Senator Chukwuka Utazi, expressed the commitment of the Senate to ensure Nigeria was not expelled from the Egmont Group, a global body that facilitate­s internatio­nal cooperatio­n in the fight against money laundering and financing of terrorism.

Nigeria was suspended in July this year and given up to December 2017 to comply with its standards on financial intelligen­ce or risk expulsion by January 2018.

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