EFCC calls for return o f stolen $148bn funds

EFCC Chairman, Farida Waziri

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has called for the repatriation of over $148bn stolen annually from African countries.
EFCC chairman, Mrs. Farida Waziri, said the money which was proceeds of crime, had been stashed away in developed countries. Waziri spoke in Gaborone, Botswana, at the first Commonwealth Regional Conference for Heads of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Africa.
“There is the urgent need for this forum to demand with one voice the immediate repatriation of hundreds of billions of dollars looted from Africa and kept in safe havens in developed economies across the world,” she said in paper she presented at the conference. She urged the heads of anti-corruption agencies in Africa to intensify the demand for the establishment of special courts that would prosecute graft cases because that was the only way corruption could be swiftly and effectively tackled.
Waziri called on the developed nations to relax the rules and conditions that made the repatriation of stolen funds back to their points of origin appear near impossible.
EFCC’s Head of Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Babafemi, in a statement in Abuja on Friday, quoted Waziri as saying that despite the constraints of a slow judicial process, the support and independence given the anti-graft agency by the Federal Government, especially President Goodluck Jonathan, had made the commission to cover a lot of grounds within eight years.
She said, “If without special courts we can secure over 600 convictions within this short time, you can imagine what we will do if we are to have dedicated judges or courts to hear only corruption cases. Today, our record of recovery is in excess of $11bn.
“We have seized through both summary and interim forfeiture orders 459 units of real estate; 593 units of vehicles and oil vessels; 404 units of bank accounts and 183,627 units of other assets within the same period even though we are yet to start operating a non-conviction-based assets forfeiture regime, which we desire.”
She said a regime of hard rules would make foreign jurisdictions unsafe for looted or tainted funds.
“There is the need for legislations such as Non-Conviction-Based Assets Forfeiture law that will strip the corrupt assets acquired through the proceeds of fraud. This will not only deny them the benefits of fraud, but will equally remove the incentive for looting,” she said.
By Olamilekan Lartey, Abuja                      Courtesy Of: Punch