Paris Club refund: EFCC intensifies probe

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has intensified investigation into the utilization of Paris Club refunds disbursed to state governments.

The Federal Government had reimbursed the sum of N516.38 billion refunded loans received from the Paris Club to the 36 state governments.

The funds were meant to address the shortfall of revenue going to states and enable them pay backlog of workers’ salaries and pension.

Top EFCC sources said the funds were being diverted by some state governors.

It was gathered that complaints received on the utilization of the funds led to recovery of N1.2 billion payment to allegedly fictitious financial consultants by the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF).

The source said the commission is going to court to get an interim forfeiture order for the N1.2 billion, adding that already another N220 million had been recovered and returned to the Federal Government account.

The recoveries are said to be part of the N3 billion received by the NGF as fees for processing the refund for the state governments.

It was revealed that $500,000 was traced to ‘Gosh Project,’ the payments were made from the account of ‘Mountain Crest Investment’ the signatory of the account, one Ifeanyi Okafor is in EFCC custody.

The EFCC said it is in the process of recovering another N100 million from Gosh Project which was invested in treasury bills.

It was learnt that another $2 million of the NGF money was traced to Bureau de Change Operators who received the money from ‘Mountain Crest.’

The EFCC is said to be investigating the payments with the aim to recover the money and charging the companies and operators to court.

It was learnt that apart from the aggregated 5 per cent payment as fees made to the NGF by the states, some state governments have also commenced payments to alleged fictitious consultants.

The EFCC is said to be immediately looking at some states to discern payments made to them.

This would be compared with payments to consultants and the utilization of the payments by the consultants for possible money laundering.