EFCC recovered N473bn, $98m in 2017 – Magu

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) recovered N473 billion and $98.2 million in 2017, the commission's Acting Chairman, Ibrahim Magu, said yesterday.

Magu who spoke during a budget defence session with the House of Representatives committee on financial crimes, chaired by Kayode Oladele (APC, Ogun), said the commission also recovered various currencies from different individuals.

He gave the breakdown of other currencies recovered as 294,851 Euro, £7.2m, 443,400 Dirham and African Rand.

He said the commission secured final forfeiture of N32bn and $5m to the coffers of the Federal Government recovered from former petroleum minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke.

Others are; recovery and final forfeiture of N449m discovered at Legico Plaza in Victoria Island, Lagos; final forfeiture of over $43m discovered in Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos; N329bn from petroleum marketers by EFCC Kano office and withholding tax recovery of N27.7bn from banks.

He said there were also 6.6m 70,500 South recovered from the Nigeria Ports Authority; N1.1bn recovered on behalf of the Assets Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) and N4bn subsidy fraud.

The lawmakers sought to know if the recovered amount were duly remitted to the Federal Government's coffers.

Magu in his response said all the amounts under final forfeiture were duly remitted to government coffers, while the commission still awaits final ruling on monies under interim forfeiture.

On the owner of Osborne Towers, Magu said documents suggested that it belongs to a company, while one of its directors is son to a former Director General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA).

On the 2018 budget proposal of the commission, Magu said EFCC had proposed N45bn to the Budget Office but only N21.6bn was approved for it.

He said the capital proposal is N7.07bn, personnel is N11.01bn, while N3.6bn is for overhead. Magu said the total amount represents 27 percent increase in the commission's 2017 budget.

Members of the committee said in view of EFCC's operations, it deserved a budget figure of about N50bn annually.