Dayo Thomas
11 March 2008
Abuja — Over N600 billion of stolen public funds have so far been recovered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) since they were established by former president Olusegun Obasanjo.
The anti-graft bodies disclosed this yesterday at a joint press conference, saying they were planning joint action to recover more looted funds.
While the EFCC said it had recovered more than $5 billion, the ICPC said it had recovered about N13 billion from systems study and corruption prevention exercise by the commission as well as unremitted tax revenue from public sector agencies.
Both commissions made the disclosure during a joint strategy retreat for anti-corruption agencies including the Code of Conduct Bureau, EFCC and ICPC, organised by a non-governmental body, Coalitions 4 Change, in Abuja.
The Chief of Staff, Mr. Dapo Olorunyomi, who represented the Acting Chairman of EFCC, Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde, revealed that the commission had made about 213 convictions, most of them very high profile ones, even as it is prosecuting over a thousand cases of economic corruption and money laundering in several courts in the country.
Olorunyomi, however, noted that for a country with so much corruption, the rate of 213 (EFCC) and 12 (ICPC) convictions was pathetic.
The Head of Department of Education in ICPC, Mrs. Rasheedat Okoduwa, disclosed that the commission was prosecuting about 148 criminal cases involving 284 persons in several courts.
She said that over N5 billion recovered by the commission was from government ministries, department and agencies during the review of personnel cost profile of the MDAs by ICPC.
"More than N3 billion was also recovered by ICPC officers from the Universal Basic Education Commission during the review exercise of UBEC's utilisation of appropriated funds," she said.
Okoduwa explained that the low rate of convictions from the ICPC was as a result of peculiar challenges faced by the commission as well as its insistence on operating by the rule of law.
"The ICPC has made it a point of duty to apply all available legal means to rid Nigeria of all forms of corruption and thus promote transparency, probity, accountability and integrity in the public and private life of Nigerians," she said.
Olorunyomi faulted the call for the merger of the EFCC and the ICPC because the campaigners "were ignorant of the distinct roles of both organisations".
"Corruption is a dynamic phenomenon, and usually manifests itself through diverse formations. It operates through a network mechanism; what the country needs, therefore, is an efficient synergy of anti-corruption organisations to effectively combat corruption," he said.
He said the task of the EFCC was to understand the operations of corruption networks, and to device internal strategies to check them.
"If one must check the menace of corruption in our system, one must really understand the dynamics of the corruption, and the EFCC has worked overtime to remain ahead of corrupt individuals in our society," he said.
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All these talks about recovered loot, good if you ask me. But the big question is after the recovery what happens next.
We have had records of recovered loot which seemed to disappear into thin air.
Lets hope this time we will see the effects of the recovered funds.
EFCC, I COMMEND YOU FOR THE GOOD JOB YOU ARE DOING BUT IF I MAY ASK, WHERE IS THIS RECOVERED FUND NOW? YOU WILL AGREE WITH ME THAT THIS MONEY IS ENOUGH TO REPAIR ALL THE MAJOR ROAD IN NIGERIA.
JOE