By Adedapo Adesanya
The federal government is set to float another agency after approval was secured on Wednesday from the Federal Executive Council (FEC), which held its meeting in Abuja.
The new body to be established will mainly handle every recovered looted asset.
The Minister of Justice, Mr Abubakar Malami, said assets recovered from looters have been in the hands of several agencies and that there was an urgent need to have an agency to coordinate them.
Thus, the FEC has approved transmission of a bill, titled Proceeds of Crime Recovery and Management Agency Bill to the National Assembly for passage into law.
He said, “The Federal Ministry of Justice presented to council a memo today (Wednesday).
“The memo is about a bill which seeks the approval of the council to transmit to the National Assembly for passage.
“It is the Proceeds of Crime Recovery and management Agency Bill.
“What happens before now is the proceeds of crime are scattered all over, and mostly in the hands of different and multiple agencies of government inclusive of the police, the DSS (Department of State Service), EFCC (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission), and ICPC (Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission),” the chief law officer of the country said.
The Minister noted that once signed by the President, an organisation will be formed to handle the assets that constitute the proceeds of crime in Nigeria.
“It is, in essence, a bill that is targeted and intended to have in place a legal and institutional framework. The legal component of it is having a law and the institutional component of it is to have an agency that will be saddled with the responsibility of managing the assets that constitute the proceeds of crime in Nigeria,” he said.
According to Mr Malami, who is also the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), the agency would see to proper documentation and management of such recovered assets and thereby guarantee transparency and accountability.
“So, with that kind of arrangement which is ad-hoc, there is no agency of government that is saddled with the responsibility of data generation, an agency that can give you off-hand the number of landed assets, number of immovable assets, the amount in cash that are recovered by the federal government by way of interim forfeiture overweigh of a final forfeiture.
“So, it is indeed over time a kind of arrangement that is not uniform and consistent.
“If you have a budget item for recovered assets, this agency will now be in a position to provide information to the federal ministry of finance, budget and National Planning on-demand as to what amount is there available for budget purposes, thereby establishing the desired transparency, the desired accountability which has not been available before now,” the AGF stated.
Dipo Olowookere