The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission said on Thursday it had remitted at least N136bn to the Federal Government account set up to collect and manage proceeds of crime since May 2022.
The commission’s chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, disclosed this to State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa, in Abuja.
According to Bawa, the breakdown of funds is as follows: N120bn, $29m, €6.6m, and about £1.1m. The naira equivalent of the funds amounts to N136,651,505,114.
These recovered funds, he said, will be deployed into ongoing infrastructure projects such as the Abuja-Kano road, the Second Niger Bridge, and the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, amongst others.
Revealing the number of funds and value of properties recovered so far, Bawa said, “From our EFCC recovery account, we paid N120bn, $29m, €6.6m, and about £1.1m.
“And the President has sanctioned that all those monies should be utilised to provide critical infrastructure in the country. So the funds will be used for the completion of the Abuja-Kano expressway, the second Niger Bridge, and the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, among other funds that the federal government is getting.”
He revealed that, in November 2022, the anti-graft agency recovered another N201bn from oil firms defaulting on royalties to the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission and the three per cent statutory payment to the Niger Delta Development Commission.
The breakdown includes $354m, N30bn and $30m.
Responding to allegations that the EFCC could be a tool in the hands of some influential individuals, Bawa argued that the agency is independent enough to investigate the suspended Attorney-General, Ahmed Idris, over a N109bn money laundering case.
An investigation, he said, has led to the recovery of over N30bn.
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