The House of Representatives on Tuesday
ordered an audit of all assets seized by the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission, including those already forfeited to the Federal
Government as proceeds of crime.
The House said such assets included cash, “moveable and immovable” items like cars and landed properties.
In a resolution in Abuja, it directed the Committee on Financial Crimes to conduct the audit within six weeks in a bid to ascertain the “legality of their current values and make appropriate recommendations to the House.”
The
House had passed the resolution following a motion moved by the
lawmaker representing Ikorodu Federal Constituency of Lagos State, Mr.
Babajimi Benson.
Benson had stated that
most assets seized by EFCC appeared to have been left to decay or there
was lack of adequate information on the state of the assets.
Assets
seized by the anti-graft agency are kept in its custody while
investigations or prosecution of offenders are ongoing and become
forfeited assets after the agency secures a favourable court judgement.
However,
lawmakers observed that the absence of a reliable inventory on such
assets left Nigerians wondering about what became of them.
For
example, the Chairman, House Committee on Public Accounts, Mr. Kingsley
Chinda, told the House that many Ministries, Departments and Agencies
of the Federal Government rarely kept a register of seized assets.
He argued that without an inventory, officials could easily pilfer the assets and falsify reports on their status.
Chinda,
who is from Rivers State, added that agencies went as far as destroying
seized assets just to cover up the theft of such properties.
