The Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission recovered stolen funds totalling N473.065bn in 2017, the
Acting Chairman of the commission, Mr. Ibrahim Magu, told the House of
Representatives on Monday in Abuja.
Magu said this when he appeared before
the House Committee on Financial Crimes to defend the agency’s 2018
budget proposals and review the performance of the 2017 allocations.
The committee is chaired by an All Progressives Congress member from Ogun State, Mr. Kayode Oladele.
Magu added that other funds recovered in
foreign currencies were $98.2m; £294,851; Dirham 443,400; and South
African Rand 70, 500.
Speaking further, he told the committee
that final forfeiture of N32bn and $5m recovered from the former
Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, had been
secured for the Federal Government.
He added, “Recovery and final forfeiture
of N449m discovered at Legico Plaza in Victoria Island, Lagos. Final
forfeiture of $43m discovered in the Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos;
recovery of over N329bn from petroleum marketers by the commission’s
Kano office; withholding tax recovery of over N27.7bn from banks;
recovery of over €6.6m from the Nigerian Port Authority; recoveries of
about N1.1bn on behalf of AMCON and recovery of subsidy fraud of over
N4bn.”
Lawmakers showed much interest in the
Osborne Towers’ recovery, asking Magu whether the commission eventually
identified the owner of the money.
He replied that nobody came forward to claim ownership of the money after the agency advertised it along with the building.
Magu stated that the EFCC later went to
court to obtain a final forfeiture order of the money and the property
for the government.
He disclosed that documents recovered
from the building indicated that companies belonging to the son of a
former Director General of the National Intelligence Agency owned
property there.
However, Magu said the ex-DG’s son, who was a director in the companies, also later denied ownership of the building.
“Since no owner came up, they were forfeited to the Federal Government by the orders of court,” he added.
The EFCC is proposing to spend N21.2bn in 2018, up from the N17.2bn it budgeted in 2017.
Magu explained that the “27 per cent”
increase was to cover a raise in personnel expenditure from N7.1bn in
2017 to N11bn in 2018.
He also complained that prosecution of
cases was taking a large chunk of the agency’s budget, with as many as
189 convictions secured in 2017.
Some members, including the Chairman,
House Committee on Public Petitions, Mr. Uzoma Nkem-Abonta, grilled Magu
over the recruitment process in the EFCC, which they said did not
reflect federal character.
They alleged that states in the
South-South and the South-East were not adequately represented in the
personnel roll of the EFCC.
But, Magu disagreed, insisting that there was fair representation of every geopolitical zone.
On several occasions, Oladele had to
intervene to douse tension as more and more members took Magu up on the
staff roll of the agency.
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