New Anti-Corruption Agency underway.
The Federal Government has approved the establishment of a new anti- graft agency “,Proceeds of Crime Recovery and Management Agency for purpose of accountability and transparency.
This was an outcome of a Federal Executive Council FEC meeting on Wednesday at the Presidential Villa,Abuja.
In order to give legal backing to the establishment of the Agency, the council has approved the transmission of a bill titled,”Proceeds of Crime Recovery and Management Agency Bill” to the National Assembly.
The Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, who disclosed the development to State House Correspondents after the virtual FEC meeting presided over by President Buhari said “the agency will be saddled with the responsibility of managing the assets that constitute the proceeds of crime in Nigeria”.
Malami said before now, the proceeds of crime were scattered and mostly in the hands of different and multiple agencies of government inclusive of the police, the DSS EFCC, and ICPC. which was inconsistent and lacked transparency
According to him, with such ad-hoc arrangement, there is no agency that is exclusively responsible for transparency and Accountability in number of assets ( landed, immovable assets, amount in cash recovered by the Federal Government by way of interim or final forfeiture which is what the new anti- corruption agency seeks to address.
He said the agency will liase with the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning on-demand “as to what amount is available for budget purposes thereby establishing the desired transparency, the desired accountability which has not been available before now”
