The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has called for the establishment of special anti-corruption courts for speedy trial of corruption cases.
EFCC Acting Chairman, Mohammed Umar, made the call on Wednesday while defending the 2021 budget estimates and performance of the 2020 budget before the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Crimes.
Umar told the lawmakers that approval has not been given to the 5 percent of monies recovered meant for the Commission as cost of collection and sought the support of the parliament in that regard.
“We’ve challenges, some of which include need to have a special court to try corruption cases, issue of increase of personnel, lack of promotion for some of the personnel, we need to promote more. These are some of the issues, poor releases of capital,” the acting chairman said.
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A member of the Committee, Dachung Musa Bagos (PDP, Plateau) sought to know why the Commission has not been able to create offices in all states of the federation but still maintains only 15 offices.
In his response, Umar said, “On 15 State Offices, we’ve not captured it in our proposal, it’s important to notify the House that until up to last three years, we only had 8 State Offices, it was in the last three years that five more State Offices were established. It’s important to recruit more than establish offices across the nation.”
He explained that the planned recruitment of new staff in 2020 could not be carried out due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic.
The EFCC boss stated that N29. 861 billion has been proposed for the 2021 budget which is made up of N24.407 billion as personnel, N3.600 billion overhead and N1.853 billion as capital expenditure.
Speaking on the performance of the 2020 budget, Umar said N32.694 billion was appropriated for the Commission, made up of N24.999 billion as personnel cost, N3.600 billion overhead and N4.094 billion capital component of which N25.136 billion (76.88 percent) has been released as at September.
He further explained that out of the N25.136 billion released so far from the N32.694 billion appropriation, N18.823 billion, representing 74.88 percent, has been fully utilised.
In his remarks, chairman of the House Committee on Financial Crimes, Isa Dutse, commended the EFCC for judicious utilisation of their funds but requested the Acting Chairman to furnish the Committee with details of the capital expenditure.
