Leadership (Abuja)
Uchenna Awom
8 November 2009
Abuja — The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) yesterday denied reports that it collects 10 percent of funds being recovered for banks. While describing the allegation as a blatant lie and a cheap blackmail, it however, warned that it will neither be deterred or bow to blackmail.
In a press release by the commission spokesman, Mr. Femi Babafemi, it said the accusation as ridiculous as it were, smacks of some well choreographed falsehood meant to distract it from the ongoing prosecution and investigation of those that have abuse their positions and betrayed depositors. "Information available to the Commission shows that some persons that have felt uncomfortable with the involvement of the EFCC in the bank sanitisation efforts, especially those that have criminally lived big on depositors' savings and those that have lost their debt recovery briefs from their collaborators in the banks, have been sponsoring this falsehood, hoping it will stick and stop the Commission from forging ahead in their prosecution.
It said, "For the avoidance of doubt and the benefit of the public, the Commission has not at any time demanded or collected any cut in whatever form from any bank over funds so far recovered for the bailed out banks or any other. As such, attempts to blackmail the EFCC through sponsored reports cannot achieve the expected result of the sponsors, rather they will serve as an elixir in our determination to dig deeper into the rot the sponsors of the blackmail have created for their benefit and that of their collaborators," he said. The commission, he said is propelled to go this far in the bank sanitisation effort not as a result of any monetary gain, but because of the need to safeguard our nation's economic stability along with other stakeholders.
Babafemi however said the EFCC understands that section 7 (2) of the legislation establishing the Commission states that the EFCC "shall be the coordinating agency for the enforcement of the provisions" of the following key legislations: The Failed Banks (Recovery of Debts) and Financial Malpractices in Banks Act 1994. The Banks and other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA) 1991 These two laws alone according to him should suffice to justify the involvement of an organization like the EFCC in the bank cleansing exercise and the recovery of loans by the Central Bank of Nigeria. "The general issues arising from the exercise in Nigeria have shown that margin loans, other forms of loan facilities and Infraction by lenders, are the critical areas that rogues within the system utilized. A simple loan facility does not at face value invite the EFCC. However where the loan process from application, through processing, to approval, disbursement, utilization and finally repayment has a criminal flavour, then the EFCC will be involved because a criminal law has been flouted.
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