EFCC Boss Clarifies Statement On Purchase Of $37.5m Property By Minister

The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Abdulrasheed Bawa, has dismissed media reports linking a serving female minister with the Buhari administration to $37.5 million property in the country.

The EFCC boss had on June 15 during an interview with Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme, revealed that the commission investigated a female minister, who bought 37.5 million dollars property from a bank and deposited 20 million dollars.

However, Bawa, during the weekly briefing organised by the Presidential Communication Team in Abuja on Thursday clarified that he was not referring to a serving minister in his narration of how a minister purchased a property via a bank manager.

The EFCC chairman was reacting to a question on why no minister had resigned or a bank manager being prosecuted over the matter, saying that he only made reference to Diezani Alison-Madueke case not a serving minister as wrongly reported.

“We investigated a matter in which a bank Managing Director marketed a property to a minister and agreed to purchase it at 37.5 million dollars.

“The bank then sent a vehicle to her house to evacuate $20 million from her house in the first instance,” he said.

He had also identified the real estate sector as a major conduit for money laundering in the country.

According to him, 90 to 100 per cent of stolen public funds are used for the procurement of landed properties in the country and abroad.