{"id":8413,"date":"2018-03-27T11:03:48","date_gmt":"2018-03-27T11:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=8413"},"modified":"2018-03-27T11:03:48","modified_gmt":"2018-03-27T11:03:48","slug":"finance-minister-adeosun-questions-figures-of-recovered-loot-announced-by-efcc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=8413","title":{"rendered":"Finance Minister, Adeosun, questions figures of recovered loot announced by EFCC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: www.premiumtimesng.com<\/strong>
\nThe Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, has stated that her ministry was only able to account for N91 billion recovered loot by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission since May 2015, contradicting figures provided by the agency\u2019s acting chairman, Ibrahim Magu.
\nIn a letter to Mr Magu last month, the minister asked the EFCC boss to explain why the figures computed by the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, a department under the Ministry of Finance, did not tally with Mr Magu\u2019s claims about recovered loot in the media.
\nCritics and transparency advocates have consistently demanded that\u00a0the EFCC be upfront with Nigerians\u00a0not just on its anti-corruption tactics but also the outcomes thereof. The agency has been pressed for details of its recovery in cash and assets since May 2015 when President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office with a promise to fight corruption.
\nSeveral members of opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who served in the Goodluck Jonathan administration or participated in botched reelection bid of the former president have been arrested with various amounts allegedly recovered from them. The EFCC had also announced recoveries of cash hauls, sometimes in millions of dollars, from\u00a0homes of former administration officials\u00a0and even\u00a0security agencies.
\nAnti-graft detectives made back-to-back recoveries after\u00a0the administration\u2019s whistle-blower policy\u00a0came to force in late 2016.
\nMr Magu has regularly touted his agency\u2019s unprecedented success in the fight against corruption, especially on confiscation of ill-gotten wealth from public coffers. Last month, he said\u00a0the EFCC recovered as much as N500 billion in 2017 alone.
\nTwo months before in November 2017, he disclosed that the EFCC recovered about N739 billion within two years.
\nBut the figures are now being disputed by the ministry and department saddled with administering the recoveries.
\nIn her February 9 letter to Mr Magu, Mrs Adeosun said her agency had calculated all recovered funds and arrived at N91 billion (N91,383,370,501.73) in recovery loot account as at the date of writing her letter. The amount represents about 18 per cent of the N500 billion Mr Magu said was recovered in 2017 and a little over 12 per cent of the N739 billion he said had been recovered within two years.
\nThe N91.3 billion also included assets under final and interim forfeitures and funds recovered in foreign currencies, according to an updated table of the recoveries attached to the letter.
\n\u201cThis is to notify you of the records of cash asset recoveries in the custody of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from May 2015 date based on information available to the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (attached),\u201d Mrs Adeosun said in the letter\u00a0first made public on March 20 by TheDetail, an online publication.
\nThe minister said the records failed to corroborate the acting chairman\u2019s comments in the media and demanded detailed explanation.
\n\u201cIt has, however, come to the attention of the Ministry of Finance, the use of recovery figures in news media reports by the EFCC that do not reconcile with the records of the ministry,\u201d she added in the letter which carried the reference number: FMF\/HMF\/EFCC\/S-EFCC-REC\/2018\/1. \u201cYou are therefore requested to clarify where these cash recoveries have been deposited and provide accompanying evidence.\u201d
\nBefore Mrs Adeosun\u2019s letter, Nigerian lawmakers have consistently demanded clarification on recovered loot under the current administration, information the EFCC is yet to provide details of.
\nDuring a Senate hearing in 2017, Mr Magu said he couldn\u2019t immediately calculate how much had been recovered under him.
\nSenate President Bukola Saraki criticised the anti-corruption agencies\u2019 handling of recovered loot as opaque and floppy, saying\u00a0their actions could cast Nigeria in a bad light\u00a0before the comity of nations.
\n\u201cAn ad hoc committee of the Senate, which is investigating some administrative infractions in the Executive, has discovered that many properties recovered from a fugitive from the law have not been accounted for by the investigating agency. This gives the global community great concern about the commitment of Nigeria to the anti-corruption drive,\u201d Mr. Saraki said.
\nThe EFFC dismissed Mrs Adeosun\u2019s letter as \u201cnothing unusual\u201d in response to a PREMIUM TIMES\u2019 enquiry Monday night, saying it has been transparent with its handling of recovered funds.
\n\u201cThere is nothing unusual about anyone asking for clarification on any matter least of all assets recovery and management which are not the simplest aspects of investigation,\u201d said Wilson Uwujaren, the agency\u2019s spokesperson.
\n\u201cThe Commission is not adverse to clarifying any issue(s) that will assist better understanding of the portfolio of assets recovered by the Commission. Indeed, it is fully engaged with other vehicles within the administration, the Presidential Audit Committee on Recovered Assets and Presidential Committee on Asset Recovery, dedicated to addressing all issues pertaining to recovered assets,\u201d he added.
\nMr Uwujaren did not, however, respond to PREMIUM TIMES\u2019 question about whether Mr Magu was standing by his public statements that as much as N739 billion had been recovered within two years.
\nEarlier on Sunday,\u00a0Mrs Adeosun played down the controversies generated by her letter, saying it was routine action taken to safeguard controls of recovered funds. The minister said Mr Magu had replied her and reconciliation of figures had commenced.
\nA social commentator says the development may show a flaw in the manner the EFCC is going about its operations.
\n\u201cEven though we are all in support of the fight against corruption, that should not mean we would tolerate Magu fighting the corruption in the media,\u201d said political analyst, Ken Eluma-Asogwa.
\nMr. Eluma-Asogwa, a lawyer based in Abuja, said the EFCC has a history of throwing around figures for the purpose of propaganda.
\n\u201cNigerians would remember when the agencies claimed that Sambo Dasuki stole $2.1 billion,\u201d the lawyer said of\u00a0the former National Security Adviser currently facing corruption charges. \u201cBy the time they calculated everything and everybody that they said Dasuki gave money to, everything was not even up to $50 million.\u201d
\n\u201cWe thank God that the minister who is in charge of all federal government earnings is the one coming out to say that the claims of Mr Magu are not true,\u201d he said. \u201d We hope the EFCC would stop fighting corruption with propaganda.\u201d
\n\u201cAnti-corruption fight is key because the country is riddled with corruption, but we should fight in it truth not in deceit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: www.premiumtimesng.com The Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, has stated that her ministry was only able to account for N91 billion recovered loot by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission since May 2015, contradicting figures provided by the agency\u2019s acting chairman, Ibrahim Magu. In a letter to Mr Magu last month, the minister asked the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":8414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}