TheCable

Abdulrasheed Bawa, chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), says “administrative exigencies” is the reason the agency hasn’t auctioned jewellery recovered from Diezani Alison-Madueke, former minister of petroleum resources.

Bawa stated this on Friday when he appeared before the house of representatives ad hoc committee investigating recovered loot.

In 2019, a federal high court in Lagos ordered the permanent forfeiture of $40 million worth of jewellery seized from Alison-Madueke.

Some items from the jewellery seizure include “419 bangles, 315 rings, 304 earrings, 267 necklaces, 189 wristwatches, 174 necklaces and earrings, 78 bracelets, 77 brooches, and 74 pendants”.

At its sitting on Friday, Adejoro Adeogun, chairman of the committee, queried Bawa for not auctioning the assets to fund the budget.

“If you have assets that are worth N14 billion and some of them could be deteriorating assets, we need to be sure they need to be in a fit and proper state. We need to know the status of these assets,” he said.

“I am sure you have cars that were seized. So, everyday you have a forfeited car, you are losing value. Why does it take so long to turn these assets into cash to fund the budget?”

In response, Bawa blamed the delay on court processes and administrative exigencies.

“Several factors — the court process and procedures is chief among them that requires a very lengthy time for us to dispose. Other issues like administrative exigencies, etc,” he said.

“I want to assure the committee, since I came on board, we have resolved that going forward we are going to be taking things on a case-by-case basis. We are not going to have it we way we had it.

“We are happy with the committee set up by the federal government, to dispose off not only the federal government assets that we seized, but the assets the other agencies seized.

“I believe once this exercise is done, the line is already drawn, and we will deal with them on a case-by-case basis, so that there will not be any need next year, in two years, or five years, for the house to set up this type of committee again. As cases are being done within courts, we will dispose them.”

So far, the panel has queried Abubakar  Malami, attorney-general of the federation (AGF); Zainab Ahmed, minister of finance; Ahmed Idris, accountant-general of the federation, and other government officials over “violation of financial regulation” relating to recovered loot.

Godwin Emefiele, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), is to appear before the panel on June 3.