The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts has commended the Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mr. Ola Olukoyede on the reforms he has instituted in the fight against corruption, economic and financial crimes in the country as well as the new fraud preventive frameworks of the Commission.
The commendation came in Abuja on Friday, October 25, 2024 when the committee members came on a working visit to the Commission at its corporate headquarters.
Speaking on behalf of the committee, its Chairman, Hon Salam Bamidele stated that “Having worked for close to one year now, we felt it is important to reach out to stakeholders, those whose mandate and ours share things in common. We have also observed your leadership of the Commission in the short time within which you have been here, and I must say that we have seen in you a good measure of dedication, commitment and understanding of the issues at stake and the best approaches you employ towards making sure that we remove this blight, this very unfortunate listing of Nigeria in every poor record on transparency, accountability and good governance, all around the world. I know that you have a lot of advocacy that you do, they are very important especially with respect to leadership education,” he said.
Bamidele says that the Public Account Committee of the National Assembly ensures that funds appropriated by the legislature to the various organs of government are applied with probity and accountability on the matters for which they are appropriated. The convergence of EFCC and the Committee’s mandates, according to him, makes synergy and collaboration between the Commission and the Committee imperative.
“There is no way that you will be doing this kind of work and we are doing our own in the National Assembly without us having a synergy. We make laws and have the mandate of oversight and if we find any agency that is working within the ambit of its Establishment Act, it is always good for us to have a deep engagement with them because that is how we will understand their challenges and know the areas where we can collaborate. So we have decided to come and identify with you and to seek a deeper engagement in these respects,” he said.
To ensure probity and accountability in public finances, Bamidele disclosed that the House of Representatives had to give the Audit Bill expedited hearing and passage and transmit to the Senate for concurrence. “What the Audit Bill will do is to ensure that the Office of the Auditor General is empowered not only with more resources but capacity to prevent financial crimes and corruption and violation of compliance from happening. If we are able to do more of prevention, your own burden too in the EFCC would be less. So, we are working to ensure that we have the Audit Bill passed in a manner that would strengthen that office and ensure that we have more preventive measures,” he said.
He expressed regret at the grinding wheel of justice in the country which often sees corruption cases drag endlessly in courts. “We have identified a few gaps in our anti-corruption drive and crusade. One of it is that we have to look at our justice administration system and mechanism of justice administration. If you start a case against somebody who has committed a financial crime and it takes up to 10 to 15 years to determine, it leads to frustration on so many ends. So, working together with other relevant committees of the House, we should be able to see how to improve on our justice administration system in a manner that will make corruption cases to be determined within the shortest possible time, even if it means creating special courts to tackle issues of financial crimes.”
Reps Visit EFCC, Lament 65,000 Abandoned Projects Valued At N32trn
The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts has asked the Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mr. Ola Olukoyede, to wade into the matter of abandoned projects nationwide.
The plea came in Abuja on Friday, October 25, 2024 when the committee members came on a working visit to the Commission at its corporate headquarters.
Speaking on behalf of the committee, its Chairman, Hon Salam Bamidele, particularly identified the problem of abandoned projects in the country as an issue of concern to the Committee, and prayed the EFCC to intervene because of the financial losses such abandoned projects inflicted on the country that he said totalled some N32 trillion.
Bamidele said: “One of the issues that also bothers us as a committee is the issue of abandoned projects in Nigeria. Our records show that we have about 65,000 abandoned projects, littered all over the country. An organization which did an evaluation of them put the amount tied on them at N32 trillion. Some of them are key infrastructure projects; some of them have been paid for 100 per cent. Some of them are funded with loans. We are very bothered about this and we are initiating steps to ensure that we look into some of these abandoned projects and as we get more information and conclude our investigations and submit them to the plenary, the House will be sending them to the EFCC and other law enforcement agencies to take the matters up from there.”
On the reforms Olukoyede had instituted in the fight against corruption, economic and financial crimes in the country as well as the new fraud preventive frameworks of the Commission.
He sued for capacity training, aimed at upskilling members of the Committee on financial infractions by the Commission.
“We are also interested in collaboration on capacity building. There is no way that you will have this type of committee that you would not need to be updated on training on trending issues on illicit financial activities for members of the committee in a manner that will make us more productive,” he said.
Olukoyede in his response expressed joy for the engagement, noting that every reform-minded Nigerian knows that the time has come for drastic actions to be taken towards redeeming the country from the vice grip of corruption and its dire consequences. While rallying all Nigerians for the anti-corruption fight, he noted that the Commission cannot do it alone, especially as the fight must be won for the sake of the country’s survival.
“When you take a general overview of what we are passing through in Nigeria you will discover that our major albatross is corruption. The fight against corruption is a battle that must be fought and won if we are to have a country. I would like to say that we all have to do more. All Nigerians have to do much more. As I am talking to you now, I have well over 48000 cases and over 8000 of them are high profile cases.”
Further on the challenges of the Commission, the EFCC boss disclosed: “An average investigator in the Commission handles about 30 to 40 case files.
“A particular prosecutor at some point was prosecuting over 80 cases, moving from one court to the other.”
“Having worked for close to one year now, we felt it is important to reach out to stakeholders, those whose mandate and ours share things in common. We have also observed your leadership of the Commission in the short time within which you have been here, and I must say that we have seen in you a good measure of dedication, commitment and understanding of the issues at stake and the best approaches you employ towards making sure that we remove this blight, this very unfortunate listing of Nigeria in every poor record on transparency, accountability and good governance, all around the world. I know that you have a lot of advocacy that you do, they are very important especially with respect to leadership education,” he said.
Bamidele said that the Public Account Committee of the National Assembly ensures that funds appropriated by the legislature to the various organs of government are applied with probity and accountability on the matters for which they are appropriated. The convergence of EFCC and the Committee’s mandates, according to him, makes synergy and collaboration between the Commission and the Committee imperative.
“There is no way that you will be doing this kind of work and we are doing our own in the National Assembly without us having a synergy. We make laws and have the mandate of oversight and if we find any agency that is working within the ambit of its Establishment Act, it is always good for us to have a deep engagement with them because that is how we will understand their challenges and know the areas where we can collaborate. So we have decided to come and identify with you and to seek a deeper engagement in these respects,” he said.
To ensure probity and accountability in public finances, Bamidele disclosed that the House of Representatives had to give the Audit Bill expedited hearing and passage and transmit to the Senate for concurrence. “What the Audit Bill will do is to ensure that the Office of the Auditor General is empowered not only with more resources but capacity to prevent financial crimes and corruption and violation of compliance from happening. If we are able to do more of prevention, your own burden too in the EFCC would be less. So, we are working to ensure that we have the Audit Bill passed in a manner that would strengthen that office and ensure that we have more preventive measures,” he said.
He expressed regret at the grinding wheel of justice in the country which often sees corruption cases drag endlessly in courts. “We have identified a few gaps in our anti-corruption drive and crusade. One of it is that we have to look at our justice administration system and mechanism of justice administration. If you start a case against somebody who has committed a financial crime and it takes up to 10 to 15 years to determine, it leads to frustration on so many ends. So, working together with other relevant committees of the House, we should be able to see how to improve on our justice administration system in a manner that will make corruption cases to be determined within the shortest possible time, even if it means creating special courts to tackle issues of financial crimes.”
