On the orders of President Muhammadu Buhari, the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), has set up three committees to look into the alleged misappropriation of over N1.3 trillion believed to have been recovered from treasury looters by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).
The committee is also empowered to look into the activities of the Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT).
The committees have the specific mandate of beaming its searchlight on the assets recovered from deceased Bayelsa State Governor, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, former Inspector General of Police, Tafa Balogun and pension thieves, The Nation reports.
It was learnt that the committees are expected to harmonise the books of the EFCC, ICPC and PRTT to arrive at its conclusions, as the presidency is interested in the true pictures of the recovery records of the anti-graft bodies.
The presidency is also believed to be worried that politics is crawling into the activities of the anti-graft agencies, especially the whereabouts of the cash and assets recovered from corrupt individuals.
Justifying the need for the committee, a highly-placed source told The Nation: “All the committees are multi-agencies, including the Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank of Nigeria and anybody managing remittances from these anti-graft agencies.
“The committees will also consider court judgments, assets seized abroad and cash and assets under Temporary Assets Forfeiture Clause.
“The committees will interact with present and past heads of anti-graft agencies and Pension Task Force. The government is not after maligning anybody or group but it is out to streamline records and present the real situation to Nigerians.
“These are more or less purely fact-finding committees to resolve all lingering issues on the status of the recovery by these agencies.”
In response to a question, the source noted: “For instance, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) said it has so far recovered over N80bn looted funds.
“The funds include N23b funds stashed in 40 banks across the country by looters. ICPC has also received over 4,497 petitions with 899 concluded, while 470 are still pending in court.
“These committees will locate all these funds, how much has been utilised and for what purposes. This will require going through remittances into the Federation Account.”