The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is sometimes accused of straying from its legally recognised duties. In the days of President Obasanjo it was regularly accused of allowing itself to be used to witch-hunt enemies of the president.
This time there's a new accusation - that the Commission now sees itself as a commission-deserving debt-recovery agency. Investigations by this newspaper revealed that the Commission has been taking a 10 percent fee on recovered bank loans.
For a long time the phrase "ten-percent" held an unassailable position in national lore, before corruption ballooned to such a scale as to render it a gross understatement; and so it is interesting that the reawakening of the phrase is traceable to a law enforcement organisation charged specifically with investigating and prosecuting financial crimes.
Extortion has long been one of the most common allegations made against Nigerian law enforcement agencies.The evidence is sometimes overt, for example the many police checkpoints that line our roads and highways.Until recently there was an invasion of inter-state highways in the Western part of Nigeria by officials of the Nigerian Customs Service, looking for second hand vehicles that evaded their watch at the country's borders. But more often than not, these transactions are clandestine and illegal.
The EFCC scenario is one of those we believe to be illegal.There are questions to be asked. Does the law setting up the EFCC permit the collection of commissions?What was the Commission's standard practice before the banking debt recovery exercise? What does the EFCC intend to do with the monies collected? Is this "administrative fee" as officials of the Commission have described it the fallout of reduced funding? Earlier this year there were reports that the European Union, the single largest donor to the Commission, was threatening to cut its funding. Has this threat been carried out?
Isn't there something discomfiting about an organisation vested with the powers to not only investigate and prosecute people for owing banks money, to also earn a commission from the debts that they recover? How can we trust the EFCC to properly carry out its anti-corruption responsibilities if it stands to benefit from the work it is doing? What guarantee do we have that the Commission will not extend these loan recovery efforts beyond the banking sector, in a bid to drive revenue levels up?
These bank debts are not the first monies to be recovered by the Commission.Several millions of naira have been recovered in the last few years? Were commissions taken from these as well? If these ten-percent commissions are regarded as payments for services rendered by the EFCC, wouldn't it therefore be justifiable for the Commission to someday demand payments from, say, government agencies, for helping to prosecute thieving officials? Will the Nigerian Ports Authority not therefore owe the EFCC payment for helping to handle the Bode George case?
It is now very clear that there are clearly activities that the EFCC should not concern itself with. Taking a cut of recovered stolen funds is one. Management of seized companies is another. A few months ago this paper reported that under the Commission's watch, Rainbownet Nigeria Limited and Cosmo FM,seized from the former Governor of Enugu State, Mr. Chimaroke Nnamani, suffered extensive mismanagement. The same fate reportedly befell Chelsea Hotel, seized from former Bayelsa state Governor, Deprieye Alamieseigha, and it took protests from the hotel's employees to compel the EFCC to hand the business over to the Bayelsa State Government.
We call on the EFCC to please mind the business for which it was set up, which is to "prevent, investigate, prosecute and penalise economic and financial crimes" and to "enforce the provisions of other laws and regulations relating to economic and financial crimes." Profit making should be left to the professional debt recovery agents.
That leaves us with the very important issue of the funding of the EFCC to enable it carry out its work. That there should be a lack of capacity to do so on our part simply boggles the mind. Why should Nigeria require the help of a donor agency to fund a commission of such national importance?
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