The
Director-General, Inter-Governmental Action Against Money Laundering in West Africa, GIABA, Dr. Abdullahi Y. Shehu, while
clamouring for better funding of the Economic and Financial crimes Commission,
EFCC, said the organisation needs complete independence in order to perform
optimally.
Dr.
Shehu was speaking in Abuja on a topic: “Recovering the Proceeds of Crime:
key legal and practical issues and challenges” at the on-going 6th
INTERPOL Global programme on Anti- Corruption, Financial Crimes and Asset
Recovery holding at the EFCC Academy.
His
words “I am advocating for providing part of the recovered funds for the EFCC
and other law enforcement agencies, this is the practice in America and
other parts of the world where serious attention is paid to the success of the
law enforcement agencies. Commonwealth countries, including Nigeria shouldn’t
be so regimented.
According
to the GIABA boss, law enforcement agencies should be able to benefit directly
from recoveries as the era of going to the National Assembly or the presidency
begging for funds should be a thing of the past. “Imagine the EFCC benefiting
from the billions of naira recovered from Cecilia Ibru, former Managing
Director of Oceanic Bank that would have gone a long way to reasonably
ameliorate part of its financial challenges”
He
also advocated for complete independence of the operations of the EFCC and
other law enforcement agencies. He noted that one of the major problems in
fighting corruption and economic crimes is undue interference of the political
class.
Earlier,
the Deputy Director, Central Bureau of Investigation, India, Mr.
Yagnic Venkata Krishna ARIGE, in his paper titled “Forensic Audit and trail of
Fraud- The Approach of Investigators”, said that INTERPOL member countries need
a comprehensive and multi-disciplinary approach to combat corruption and all
forms of economic and financial crimes.
He
said that forensic audit becomes a major factor and an attraction to
investigators in the face of escalating corporate fraud.
He
also said that member countries should work on the necessary legislation and
all that is required to ensure that directors of all registered companies are
coded through a Director Identification Number, DIN.
The
DIN, he said is what an investigator needs to track and trail proceed of
crimes
The
week long conference ends on Friday, October 11, 2013.
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