The Federal Executive Council, on Wednesday, approved a bill that seeks to, among other things, create an agency that will be saddled with the responsibility of managing proceeds of crimes in Nigeria.
With Wednesday’s approval of the bill titled ‘Proceeds of Crime Recovery and Management Agency Bill,’ the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), was directed to transmit same to the National Assembly for the purpose of passing it into law.
Malami disclosed this to State House correspondents at the end of the weekly meeting of the council presided over by the President Muhammadu Buhari.
President Buhari presided over the virtual meeting from the Council Chamber of the Presidential Villa, in Abuja, with some ministers in attendance while others participated from their offices.
According to Malami, the current situation in the country is that proceeds of crime are currently are with multiple government agencies.
He said after the passage of the bill and the creation of the agency, the organisation would be solely responsible for managing the proceeds of crimes in Nigeria.
He said, “The bill is targeted and intended to have in place legal and institutional framework.
“The legal componence of it is having a law while the institutional component of it is to have an agency that will be saddled with the responsibility of managing the assets that constitute proceeds of crime in Nigeria.
“What happens before now is that 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 (Department of State Services), the EFCC (The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission) and the ICPC (Independent Corrupt Practices Commission).
“So, with that kind of arrangement which is ad hoc, there is no agency of government that is saddled with the responsibility of data generation, an agency that can give you offhand the number of landed assets, immovable assets, the amount in cash that is recovered by the Federal Government by way of interim forfeiture or final forfeiture.
“So, it is indeed over time a kind of arrangement that is not uniform and consistent.
“It is a next level of transparency and accountability that we will have in place an agency of government that is exclusively responsible for proceeds of crime.
“It will be a one-stop shop arrangement by which all the assets that are recovered arising from crime that are indeed vested in the Federal Government, you have a one-stop arrangement where you can have an information.”
Malami added that once there is a budget line for recovered assets directed by the President, the agency to be created would be in a position to provide information to the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning on demand concerning what amount was available for budget purposes, thereby establishing the desired transparency which has not been available before now.
When asked if the bill has to do with the recent experience with the EFCC, the minister said there were failed attempts to present the bill to FEC in 2007, 2011 and 2019.
“So, to now tie it to a particular institution or particular development of 2020, I think is unfounded taking into consideration the historical antecedents relating to the bill,” he said.
On his part, Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, also told journalists that the council approved a new national policy on occupational safety and health titled, ‘National Policy on Occupational Safety 2020.’
He said the new policy was aimed at ensuring that all workers were safe at their work places across the country.
The minister said the policy was formulated from the provisions of the nation’s constitution and the International Labour Organisation’s convention.
Ngige said, “This policy is designed to ensure safety and health of workers at work places.
“It derives from the main ground norm law of the 1999 constitution as amended, which in Section 17 (3c) prescribes that the Nigerian state shall make laws and bye-laws for preservation of the health and well-being of workers in the work places; men and women at work.”
He said the last time the policy was reviewed was 14 years ago.
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, told reporters that she briefed the council on the recent Q2 report released by the National Bureau of Statistics and held the view that the nation’s economy performed better than expected.
She said, “The GDP report shows that the economy went into negative growth of -6.10% in the second quarter but that the aggregate performance for half year 2020 is -2.1%. This performance of -6.10% is a good performance in the sense that it is better than what we have projected second quarter performance to be at -7.2%.
“This performance also is a good performance because it outperformed the projections that had been done by the Brentwood institutions. But it also outperformed very developed economies of the world and also economies that are comparable to us.”
Meanwhile, eminent lawyers on Wednesday reacted to the plan by government to establish asset management agency.