FG announces plan to create agency to manage crime proceeds

The federal executive council (FEC) on Wednesday approved a bill seeking the creation of an agency to manage the proceeds of crime in the country.

This was disclosed by the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, while briefing journalists after the virtual Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting in the State House, Abuja.

According to Malami, the FEC had directed him to forward the bill titled “Proceeds of Crime Recovery and Management Agency” to the national assembly.

He explained that the bill when passed, would provide transparency in the way proceeds of crimes are managed.

Malami said, “The Federal Ministry of Justice presented to Council a memo today (Wednesday).

“The memo is about a Bill which seeks the approval of the Council to transmit to the National Assembly for passage.

“It is the Proceeds of Crime Recovery and management Agency Bill.

“It is in essence a bill that is targeted and intended to have in place a legal and institutional framework. The legal component of it is having a law and the institutional component of it is to have an agency that will be saddled with the responsibility of managing the assets that constitute the proceeds of crime in Nigeria.

“What happens before now is the proceeds of crime are scattered all over, and mostly in the hands of different and multiple agencies of government inclusive of the police, the DSS (Department of State Service), EFCC (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission), and ICPC (Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission).

“So, with that kind of arrangement which is ad-hoc, there is no agency of government that is saddled with the responsibility of data generation, an agency that can give you off-hand the number of landed assets, number of immovable assets, the amount in cash that are recovered by the federal government by way of interim forfeiture overweigh of a final forfeiture.

“So, it is indeed over time a kind of arrangement that is not uniform and consistent.

“If you have a budget item for recovered assets, this agency will now be in a position to provide information to the federal ministry of finance, budget and National Planning on-demand as to what amount is there available for budget purposes, thereby establishing the desired transparency, the desired accountability which has not been available before now.”