The Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, is to enjoy the support of the World
Bank in the area of infrastructure and capacity building to further
strengthen the anti-graft war in Nigeria.
Dr. Ed Olowo-Okere,
Director, Governance Global Practice, World Bank gave this assurance on
Thursday, May 4, 2017 during a visit to the EFCC at the Commission’s
Head Office, Abuja.
Acknowledging the tremendous work of the EFCC
and the feat it had attained in the last 14 years of its establishment,
Dr. Olowo-Okere went down the memory lane to recall his familiarity with
the works of the Commission and some of the challenges the agency had
when it was first created, pledging support in any area possible to
further enhance its operations.
"We are preparing an operation
called ‘Economic Governance Project’. It is supposed to be a follow-up
project to the one approved by the World Bank in 2004.
The Ministry of
Finance has said that one of the agencies they would like us to work
with and support under the project is EFCC. We are here today to start
that conversation", Olowo-Okere said.
Responding, Ibrahim Magu,
Acting Chairman, EFCC, acknowledged the great assistance the Commission
had been receiving from the World Bank and other development partners
saying, “the assistance has in no small measure contributed to the
successes recorded by the EFCC so far”.
Giving a brief recap of the
history of EFCC Magu said, "When we started the EFCC, there was no
money. We borrowed money from Bureau of Public Enterprise, BPE, for
effective take-off of our operations.
When the international community
saw the sincerity in us, how we were able to arrest and put in cell
those high profile criminals that nobody dared to touch before, they got
convinced by our commitment towards prosecuting the anti-corruption
war”.
He went further: “We got a lot of attention from development
partners particularly the World Bank, who gave us a lot of money that
was used to construct the EFCC Academy. Britain and America too are also
of tremendous support.”
The EFCC boss expressed concern over the
delay usually experienced in dispensing corruption cases and the
conspiracy (in some cases) between the criminals and judicial
workers/law enforcement agents to make violators of law escape justice,
citing the case of a former governor of Adamawa State who was set free
with the connivance of a prison warder and court registrar after being
convicted by court.
Expressing the passion the EFCC has for the war
against corruption, Magu said, “EFCC needs training in money laundering
as it is still a new concept which most judges and prosecutors still
need to better understand”.
The anti-graft czar also informed the
delegation of the low budgetary allocation to EFCC expressing his desire
to have the construction work on the Commission’s permanent site
completed this year for effective performance.
Magu, while
commending President Muhammadu Buhari for making corruption fight a
cardinal focus of his administration said, “the proposal of
$42.12million made to the World Bank, if gotten will go a long way in
the completion of our permanent site as most of our offices are rented
and scattered around town, exposing us to risk of confidentiality and
coded surveillance by outsiders.”
Other needs listed by the EFCC
boss included, ICT infrastructure, upgrading of the forensic laboratory,
surveillance tools and operational vehicles.
On the visit were Hisham Waly, Manager, World Bank; Ismaila Ceesay, Lead Financial Specialist; Manuel Vargas and Roland Lomme, Senior Governance Specialist.
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