The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) is to collaborate with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFFC) with a view to blocking laundered money from the privatization programme. Receiving the Director-General (D-G) of BPE Mr. Alex Okoh in his office, yesterday, the Ag. Chairman of the EFCC, Mr. Magu expressed the commission’s readiness to partner with the BPE in all its transactions.
He assured that EFCC was ready to carry out due diligence on any entity that showed interest in the purchase of government assets in order to prevent corrupt elements from using the privatisation process as a means of laundering illegally acquired funds. EFCC operatives “We will be willing to support you against any threat that will discourage investors from coming into the country and in order to achieve this; I think we need to establish a common desk for a seamless synergy,” he said.
Magu thanked the BPE for its support during the evolution of the commission, saying that the N100million received from the BPE as take off support helped the commission to start its operations. Four reasons why Nigerian economy will not improve under Buhari According to Magu, “If we hadn’t gotten that money, we wouldn’t have been able to kick start.” The money, he said, brought some seriousness into EFCC’s operations and “we started arresting those fraudsters who hitherto were seen as ‘untouchable’ moving around with convoys and sirens. Many of them were arrested and jailed and the Commission recovered substantial amounts of money on behalf of so many victims from them which were restituted to the victims.” In his remark.
The BPE boss said that the collaboration between the two agencies became necessary to ensure that the objectives of the programme were met. He said that the activities of the Bureau reflected the principles of transparency, which the EFCC was propagating. The activities of the EFCC, according to Mr. Okoh had brought sanity into the economy and had increased investors’ confidence in Nigeria.
His words, “the EFCC has provided a platform and atmosphere that has enhanced comfort and confidence in the investors who we directly deal with on a regular basis, the kind of comfort to engage and invest in this economy. The BPE is an agency of government that is mandated to provide sector and enterprise reforms as they relate to government and state owned enterprises.” Mr. Okoh said that BPE had conducted transactions in the various sectors of the Nigerian economy, over the years, which had brought huge revenue to the Federal Government and improved service delivery.
https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/11/bpe-efcc-to-block-money-laundry-in-privatization-exercise
