By Mary Sunday
The House of Representatives on Thursday moved to Identify and recover public funds seized, forfeited and abandoned in financial institutions and Government Agencies to improve and address the challangies .
The resolution followed the adoption of a motion moved by Hon. Dachung Bagos during plenary in Abuja.
Moving the motion, Bagos noted that the Proceeds of Crime Act was enacted to provide for an effective legal and institutional framework for the recovery and management of the proceeds of crime, strengthen criminal confiscation procedure, and collaborate among the relevant organizations in tracing properties reasonably suspected
to be proceeds of unlawful activities.
He further noted that under Section 69 of the afore said states that all recovered Monies, as well as proceeds from the sale of confiscated assets, shall be paid into the Central Bank of Nigeria as confiscated and forfeited Properties Account for the Federation.
According to the lawmaker, the CBN grant permission to Money Transfer Service Operations (MTSO) for both inbound and outbound transfers and that sometimes monies are trapped in the coffers of the CBN and other
financial institutions
He also observed that despite having at least 12 institutions and agencies responsible for tackling illicit
financial flow (IFF) and related crimes, Nigeria continues to be menaced by weak regulatory structures
and complicity of other financial secrecy, among others.
“All recovered Funds from the investigation of the Federal Government Agencies like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit
(NFIU), Funds recovered through whistle Blowing, all funds seized by CBN, funds left by deceased bank customers, funds trapped in banks, forfeiture, exhibits, proceed of frauds terrorism, drugs, etc,
are stacked in places not known and are not accounted for to the Public
“While the National Assembly has made considerable efforts by making enactments such as the Proceeds of Crime Act which has introduced some laudable provisions to realign the fight
against corruption and financial crimes with International best practices, the lack of enforcement has rendered these efforts futile,” he added.
The House therefore resolved to constitute an Ad-hoc Committee to appraise the Federal Government’s current policy framework, to
ascertain- who authorized the seizures?
who keeps the seized funds and for what duration,and demand for the statement of account for a period covering ten (10) years and proffer measures to
curb revenue losses and identify and analyze all funds trapped in other banks and funds recovered
so far by CBN, EFCC,NFIU and other agencies and report back within 4 weeks.
