Modupe Gbadeyanka
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Ibrahim Magu, has charged compliance officers of banks in Nigeria to play active role in tackling money laundering and other fraudulent financial practices in the banking sector.
During an interactive session in the south eastern part of the country on Wednesday, Mr Magu also tasked the bankers to be diligent in the discharge of their duties.
Represented at the meeting by the Zonal Head of EFCC in the South-East, the anti-graft agency’s boss condemned the actions of some bank officials, who aid and abet money laundering activities and other such economic and financial crimes, describing such acts as “a sign of systemic abuse and failure on the part of such banks.”
“Those failed states we know today did not just fail in one day, their failure was a gradual abuse of systems that we must guard against,” he said.
According to him, the “interface” was as a result of several “wrong things, which we observed are being done by bank officials”.
“There is no major fraud especially money laundering that is ever committed without the connivance of the bank officials, and this must stop,” he said.
He further enjoined them to see themselves as critical to the progress of the banking sector, in order to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into the country.
