The amended Bill to the EFCC Act, 2004 sponsored by Bassey Ewa, is already gazetted for second reading on the floor of the House of Representatives and also seeks to “provide for quick recovery procedures for stolen assets; implement active pursuit of cases, build capacity and improve trust and cooperation with foreign counterparts, as well as ensure adequate funding of the Commission.”
As specified in the bill, corruption offences include: “bribery of national public officials, bribery of foreign public officials and officials of public international organisations; embezzlement, misappropriation or other diversion of property by a public official; trading in influence; abuse of functions; illicit enrichment; bribery in the private sector; embezzlement of property in the private sector and laundering of proceeds of crime.”
In discharging its functions, the Economic and Financial Crimes Court, as encapsulated in the bill, is also expected to handle cases of bribery of by legal persons and bribery in the private sector.
With the proposed amendment to section 18 of the EFCC principal Act, “all convicted persons shall serve an imprisonment of a term not less than 20 years and have their ill-gotten property, accounts, or investment confiscated by the government” though there is provision for plea bargaining for any accused persons who accepts to refund the total amount standing in his/her name, who shall be convicted for not more than two years.
Meanwhile, any company found guilty of offenses under the Act, stand to be blacklisted for 50 years from doing business in Nigeria and have its assets and finances frozen.
Section 3(4) provides that any petitions against the EFCC chairman or any of its members of staff, from the public or private sector, shall be submitted to the National Assembly, and if upon investigation found culpable, a simple majority vote of members of the National Assembly is required in considering the fate of the chairman or any affected member.
While section 3(5) empowers the National Assembly to forward such recommendations to the Presidency for implementation, “if the President objects to the removal of the chairman or any affected members of the commission, he shall communicate in writing to the National Assembly, advancing reasons against the removal of the chairman or an affected member, within 30 days.
“However, a two-thirds majority vote of the National Assembly shall be required to veto the decision of the President for the affected member to be removed.”
The proposed bill also seeks for the amendment of section 12 of the EFCC principal Act, by providing for the appointment of a retired Assistant Inspector-General of Police, or its equivalent in the Nigerian Army, that will head the Financial Investigative Unit.
Meanwhile the Financial Investigative Unit (FIU) is empowered to “have access to all accounts and investigate any account” without complying with the Evidence Act, “provided that the investigation emanates from the Financial Investigative Unit.”
The FIU can also access unconditionally, the bank accounts of individuals, public or politically exposed persons working or (who) had worked in any strategic position exposed to public funds; monitor cash transactions of all accounts in Nigeria, to determine inflow and outflow daily.”
In a related development, Edward Pwajok, also seeks amendment of the principal Act of the Money laundering (Prohibition) Act, by defining ‘anonymous person’.
According to the proposed amendment in section 25, “Anonymous account means an account that is opened in the name of a different person but used by the beneficiary of the transaction, in the account or person proven to be the real owner of the account.”
It also seeks to define the numbered account as “an account that does not have an owner but numbers or other symbols are used to identify it.”
It also seeks to amend Section 11(2b) of the principal Act by increasing the existing penalty from N10 million to “not less than N50 million”.
To ensure effective funding of the FIU by way of amending section 35 of the EFCC Principal Act, the bill provides that “ 0.1% of all contracts awarded by Federal Government shall be credited to the Commission to facilitate prosecutions, practitioner networks (global or regional Asset recovery), enforcement efforts to combat economic and financial crimes, and asset recovery.
“0.1% of the internally generated revenue shall be credited to the fund of the Commission. 0.1% of the sums of money recovered from the looted funds,” section 8 of the amendment bill stated.
http://www.financialwatchngr.com/2016/03/29/no-hiding-place-looters-reps-moves/
No comments:
Post a Comment