Blessing Okorite, Port Harcourt
The Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC, Mr, Ibrahim Mustafa Magu, has noted that there are a lot of bank officials who are experts in fraudulent activities within the bank.
Mr Magu, spoke on Friday during a meeting with officials of Compliance Unit of Banks at the EFCC zonal office in Port Harcourt.
According to the EFCC boss, the aim of the meeting was to discuss and arrive at a solution to curbing out the bad eggs in the banking system, adding that there are also corrupt officials of law enforcement agencies that would also be fished out during the cleanup exercise.
He said, a lot of fraudulent activities going on in the country were successful because of the role some law enforcement officers and bankers played.
Magu urged that for the country to move on well, everybody should join hands to fight against corruption in the system, adding that his led leadership is bent on making sure corruption is eradicated from the system.
He said: “Unfortunately we now have fraudsters working right inside the banks. Some of these stealing come from the fraudsters within the banks. They throw the confidentiality to the wind and subjects people accounts into a lot of intimidation extortion. So we want to put in machineries to deal with such fraudulent activities in the bank.
“I think this is basically why we are having this meeting with Compliance Unit of Banks. There are a lot of stealing going on in the bank and this is why am talking to the compliance officers. We will reach the highest level because more importantly, we have to take the issue of smart stealing and money laundry serious and terrorism financing, because the issue of Boko Haram refusing to go shows that there is something behind, there is element of terrorist financing and there is no doubt about that.
“And also in law enforcement agencies, there are bad ones among us, even in EFCC that seems to give readily available partnership with some fraudulent elements within the banks to perpetrate certain fraudulent activities and money laundry.”
However, the EFCC boss urged journalists as hunters of corruption to continue to sensitize the public on the need to shun corruption for a better future generation.
“I want to say again, Journalists are supposed to be corruption fighters, corruption hunters just like the bank compliance officers who are also corruption fighters. So we must all work together to make this fight against corruption in Nigeria work.
“I urge you again as journalists to fight corruption. Corruption is evil, is danger, and is disaster. Is what is killing this country, so we have to remove it not for our own sake but for the future generation, it is the responsibility of everybody to fight against corruption in the country, the media is our greatest partner.”
