The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the establishment of the Proceeds of Crime Recovery and Management Agency Bill.
The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, disclosed this to State House correspondents after this week’s virtual FEC meeting, which was presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa .
According to Malami, the bill is targeted and intended to have in place a legal and institutional framework through which all recovered stolen assets are pooled and managed under an agency, ending the era when various government agencies work at variance with regards to recovered assets.
He explained that once the bill becomes law and the agency is established, it would see to proper documentation and management of such recovered assets and thereby guarantee transparency and accountability.
“It is a Proceeds of Crime Recovery and Management Agency Bill. It is in essence a bill that is targeted and intended to have in place a legal and institutional framework. The legal component of it is having a law. And the institutional component of it is to have an agency that will be saddled with the responsibility of managing the assets that constitute the proceeds of crime in Nigeria.
“What happens before now is the proceeds of crime are scattered all over, and mostly in the hands of different and multiple agencies of government inclusive of the police, the DSS, EFCC, and ICPC.
So, with that kind of arrangement which is adhoc, there is no agency of government that is saddled with the responsibility of data generation, an agency that can give you off head the number of landed assets, number of immovable assets, the amount in cash that are recovered by the federal government by way of interim forfeiture overweigh of a final forfeiture.
So, it is indeed overtime a kind of arrangement that is not uniform and consistent.
“So, what this law now seeks to do is to move the fight against corruption to the next level. Next level of transparency next level of accountability and in essence, have in place an agency of government that is exclusively responsible for anything proceeds of crime.
So, a one-stop shop arrangement by which all the assets that are recovered arising from crimes that are indeed vested in the federal government, you have a one-stop arrangement where you can have an information.
