Pass Unexplained Wealth Bill; EFCC Chairman tells National Assembly

The Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Mr Ola Olukayode, has urged the National Assembly to pass the Unexplained Wealth Bill pending since the 9th Assembly.

Olukayode made the appeal at the ongoing National Conference on Public Accounts and Fiscal Governance, organised by the Senate and House of Representatives Public Accounts Committees.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the theme for the three-day conference is “Fiscal Governance in Nigeria: Charting a New Course for Transparency and Sustainable Development.”

He said there were evidences of people living above their means and there was no clear-cut law holding them accountable.

“In the last three weeks, we started a commission-wide investigation into the extractive industry, particularly the oil and gas sector. What we have discovered is mind-boggling.

“And we have only just opened the books. So much more corruption is to be unraveled. If this is what we’re seeing at the surface, imagine what lies beneath.

“There is a very strong connection between the mismanagement of our resources and insecurity.

“When you look at banditry, kidnapping, terrorism, trace it back, and you will find a pattern of corrupt practices and diversion of funds that were meant to improve people’s lives.

“Help me pass the Unexplained Wealth Bill. I’ve been begging for the past one year. This same bill was thrown out in the last Assembly. If we don’t make individuals accountable for what they have, we’ll never get it right.

“Someone has worked in a ministry for 20 years. We calculate their entire salary and allowances. Then we find five property , two in Maitama, three in Asokoro. Yet we’re told to go and prove a predicate offence before we can act. That is absurd,” he said.

The EFCC boss urged all Nigerians to put aside creed, politics and ethnic sentiments to block revenue leakage and save the economy of the country.

Olukayode said that Nigerians should not fail to take advantage presented by President Bola Tinubu’s administration to block revenue leakage as it could spell doom for the country.

According to him, no amount of capacity will be able to recover half of the resources stolen from Nigeria as many host countries are not willing to repatriate.

He said that the best option was to prevent corruption saying that failure to do so, corruption would kill the country.

In his remarks, the Director-General, Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Dr Adebowale Adedokun, decried persistent inefficiencies and violations in Nigeria’s budget and project implementation process.

He said that uncoordinated and underfunded capital projects had become a conduit for corruption and fiscal irresponsibility.

Adedokun stressed the urgent need to overhaul Nigeria’s project funding model and enforce accountability through judicial sanctions.

The BPP boss warned that projects should not be allowed to commence without adequate funding.

He described the practice of allocating paltry sums to multi-billion-naira projects as a deliberate invitation for budget variations and corruption.

Adedokun revealed that in recent months, the Bureau discovered some contracts were awarded and executed without any financial backing, a practice he described as “contrary to law” and “endangering the 2024 budget cycle.”

“There are projects worth ₦10 billion or ₦5 billion, but what I see is that only ₦300 million is allocated. Already, it tells me that I’ll be asked for appropriation again, or to incure variation. That is wasteful and unacceptable.

“In global standards, a project must already have funding from start to finish before execution. But here, people just award contracts without funds, and that’s a clear violation of the procurement act.

“If we are serious about stopping waste and corruption, we must start monitoring at the beginning of the budget cycle. Not after projects have failed or funds have been misused,” he said.

He urged all fiscal oversight bodies, including the EFCC, Fiscal Responsibility Commission, and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), to begin their monitoring from the very start of the budget cycle, not midway or after funds had been disbursed. (NAN) (www.nannews.ng)