Whistle blowering policy: FG only pays for funds recovered - Malami
Office of the AttorneyGeneral of the Federation and Minister of Justice only pays whistle-blowers after successful recovery of the loot, as mere tracing or exposure of suspected illegitimate funds does not qualify for payment until the said loot is fully recovered.
Umar Jibrilu Gwandu, special assistant on media to the minister of justice, Abubaksr Malami, discloses this in a statement.
This was the minister reaction to a story published in a newspaper on a pretext of a letter allegedly by one Aliyu Lemu, purportedly written on June 22, 2020, on issues surrounding payment of a whistle-blower’s fees.
“The Office of the AttorneyGeneral of the Federation and Minister of Justice wants to make it categorically clear that one does not get payment on account of exposing looted assets, but on successful recovery and lodgment of same into the designated assets recovery account at the Central Bank of Nigeria,” the statement notes
According to the minister, the procedure for engagement of a whistle blower or recovery agent as it relates to the Office of the Attorney-general of the Federation, include submission of proposal to the Office of the Attorney-general of the Federation; a letter of engagement is issued to a whistle-blower of recovery agent where the disclosure is assed to have some prospects of success; and the recovery agent or whistle-blower is expected to notify in writing the acceptance of the engagement.
Other procedures demand that the recovery agent or whistle blower is expected, upon acceptance, to not only trace the assets but recover same and have it re-posited in a designated asset recovery account maintained by the Federal Government of Nigeria in the Central Bank, which is usually provided to the recovery agent in writing.
At the end where these funds are eventually claimed to have been lodged by a whistle-blower or recovery agent, the Central
Bank issues acknowledgement of receipt of the fund to the Office of Attorney-general on demand. It is the satisfaction of the above elements that entitles the whistle-blower or a recovery agent to a claim of success fee and the payment is usually effected by the Federal Ministry of Finance and not the Office of the Attorney-general of the Federation.
The role of the Office of the Attorney-general, according to Malami, is simply that of processing the above listed documents to the Ministry of Finance saddled with the responsibility of effecting payment.
Malami explains further that recovery is not about exposing the existence of certain assets in an account purported to have belonged to an agency of the government, it is about establishing that the funds in the account are looted assets or illegitimately warehoused and following that up with actual recovery and lodgment of the funds in the designated Asset recovery account through judicial and extra-judicial means.