Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mrs. Farida Waziri has called for an unconditional repatriation of over $148 billion annually stolen from African countries and hidden in safe havens in developed economies.
Waziri who made the call while presenting the Nigeria’s paper at the just concluded 1st Commonwealth Regional Conference for Heads of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Africa, in Gaborone, Botswana, also challenged her colleagues from other African countries to go beyond bemoaning the slow pace of corruption cases in courts to definite demand for the establishment of special courts that would prosecute only graft cases.
She said until this was done, anti-graft agencies on the continent would continue to complain about the slow pace of trial of corruption cases.
The EFCC Chairman said though Nigeria was yet to have special courts, the crusade for its creation which in 2008 had continued to win more support and advocates across the country.
A statement by EFCC’s Head of Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Babafemi, noted that despite the constraints of slow judicial process, the support and independence given to the anti-graft agency by the federal government especially President Goodluck Jonathan had made it to cover a lot of grounds within a space of eight years.
According to Waziri, “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 $11 billion. But beyond this, we have seized through both summary and interim forfeiture orders 459 units of real estate, 593 units of vehicles/ 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.”
“What it means is that, with special courts and assets forfeiture law, the war against graft would have been taken to a different level.”
Waziri further called on developed countries that have provided safe havens for looted funds to return them unconditionally, noting that the idea of holding on to stolen funds even after they have been traced and established as ill-gotten provides a distortion in global macroeconomic indices.
She stated that, “Our experience with certain countries has not been palatable. Consistently some countries have not been too cooperative in retrieval of stolen funds and it will appear that peculiar national interest guides cooperation with us.
“We must understand that the ill effects of corruption does not only affect the origin of the illicit funds but also the receiving countries in the sense that in both locations, funds that have no bearing on productive ventures has either left the economy or has been injected into it.
“Consequently, there is a major distortion in macroeconomic indices and this should not be accepted.”
The anti-graft boss noted that countries must work better together, pointing out that the United Nations estimates that around $148 billion is annually stolen from Africa by the political leaders, the business elite and civil servants with the collusion and connivance of banking industries in Europe and other developed economies.
“This is staggering; For African nations to win the war against corruption and overcome its developmental challenges, she said certain steps must be taken,” she told the gathering.
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