EFCC Does Not Take Commission On Recovered Assets–Official

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has revealed that it does not take any percentage of funds or properties recovered from corrupt persons.

This was revealed by  Chime Samuel, Prosecutor, Legal and Prosecution Department of the EFCC, during a twitter forum with members of the public on Wednesday.

Samuel made the revelation while responding to a question during the session. A participant had asked to know if the EFCC takes any percentage of what it recovers.

 “The truth is EFCC does not retain even 1% or 0.0% of these assets. And there have been misconceptions by the public that the EFCC retains a percentage. There’s no law allowing the Commission to retain any percentage as at now. The whole proceeds are given back to the victims or sent to the consolidated revenue,” he said.

He stated further that in some countries, agencies such as the EFCC are empowered to retain certain percentages due to the expensive nature of investigations, but regretted that it is not the situation in Nigeria.

Speaking from the legal perspective, Chime noted that assets recovered from the proceeds of crime are sold and the monies are sent into the consolidated revenue.

He said, “Be it an interim order or final order from the court, what happens is that if a victim has the assets and is the complainant,  the asset is actually transferred or handed back to the victim.

“Or in cases where assets are forfeited to the Federal Government, the Secretary of the Commission is to sell such assets and the proceeds remitted into the consolidated revenue funds.

“ If it is money that is received,  it is sent directly to the consolidated revenue. And if it is an asset, it’ll be auctioned and the proceeds received will also be sent there.” .

 Also speaking on the subject,  Aliyu Yusuf, Director Assets Forfeiture, Recovery and Management, said asset recovery entails tracing of assets suspected to have been derived from criminal activities or financial crimes.

He said, “First of all you have to identify the assets and go to court for attachment of such assets before applying to court for Interim Forfeiture or Final Forfeiture.

“EFCC has a mandate to investigate the economy and financial crimes, and in the process of performing its functions, it receives petitions from individuals, corporate organisations, banks, federal, state and local governments, and all manner of petitions and crimes.”

Yusuf said, in the process of investigating the cases, assets are traced and the cases go to court.

When an offender eventually gets convicted,  the court usually orders for Final Forfeiture of money recovered in that respect to the FG, adding that the same thing applies to individuals and corporate organizations whose assets are recovered.

“The EFCC Act section 31 gives the Secretary of the Commission the power to dispose of assets,” he stated.