– The ongoing fight against corruption by the EFCC will soon enter the petroleum industry
– The chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu said the petroleum industry would be among its next set of sectors to be investigated
– Diezani Allison-Madueke, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala may be on of those that will be investigated
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) would soon begin investigating the petroleum industry for alleged corrupt practices perpetrated during the immediate past administration of Goodluck Jonathan.
Ibrahim Magu, the chairman of the anti-graft agency disclosed this on Monday, February 8, when he appeared before the House of Representatives financial crimes committee to defend the 2016 budget proposal, Daily Trust reports.
According to him, the petroleum industry would be among its next set of sectors to be investigated as all preliminary investigations have been concluded.
He avoided giving direct answers when he was asked by Rep Razak Atunwa (APC, Kwara) whether the agency will go after the former minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Allison-Madueke; Kola Aluko; former Finance minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and some oil companies in its ongoing fight,
Magu merely responded by saying: “very soon, we will go into the petroleum industry.”
“Such investigation requires that we have to build capacity, we have to bring in experts to enable us tackle what we are doing properly and the investigation must be conducted properly. We have internal lawyers and external lawyers, we have to pay insurance.”
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The EFCC boss stated that the agency plans to recruit additional 750 different cadre staff this year to strengthen the anti-corruption war and add to the core work of the commission.
On the anti-graft’s 2016 budget, Magu complained that a slash to the commission’s allocation of N1.60 billion would affect the operations of the agency, particularly investigations into corruption allegations.
He said the ministry of Budget and National Planning had reduced the agency’s overhead cost for 2016 from the proposed N2, 999 billion to N1, 389 billion.
Magu called on the lawmakers to consider the approval of an additional N500 million for the agency in order to aid its operational activities “as more sectors of the economy may likely come under investigative activities during the year.”
Ironically, the budget ministry cut the EFCC’s personnel cost for this year by 6.5 per cent. In 2015, the personnel cost for 2,173 employees was N7.1bn. But, in the 2016 budget, the budget ministry reduced it to N6.6bn, a decrease of “N463.2million.”
Alison-Madueke is facing serious corruption investigations in both Nigeria and the UK.
Recently, report surfaced that President Muhammadu Buhari said that he was unable to prosecute the former minister of petroleum resources, Alison-Madueke and other petroleum workers over what he called lack of evidence.
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