The Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Abdulrasheed Bawa, on Wednesday reiterated the Commission’s full commitment to frontally deal with perpetrators of all forms of corruption or fraudulent/illegal activities in the nation’s extractive industries.
The EFCC boss, was quoted by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) as giving the assurance during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the commission and the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) led by its Executive Secretary, Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji at the Commission’s headquarters in Abuja.
The anti-graft agency’s chairman promised to use the Commission’s Extractive Industry Fraud Section to deal with issues relating to the extractive industries, and to sanitize the sector.
He assured: “I want to assure you that all the issues that your report will raise and all the issues that we are also seeing on our own relating to extractive industries, in oil and gas as well as in solid mineral, we will deal head-on with them.
“The Memorandum of Understanding is very clear regarding your expectation and our expectation and I want to assure you in addition to other issues of training and all of that, we will do our best and ensure that the industry is sanitized for the betterment of this country.
“The EFCC so much believe that if we can block the leakages, this country will not need to borrow a single cent from any other country to come and finance our budget and that is why we are interested in this MoU and that is why we are keen to see that the extractive industries are sanitized for the betterment of this country”, Bawa added.
In his remarks, the NEITI’s Executive Secretary, Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, said that with the MoU, NEITI, which has no enforcement powers, would be able to leverage on the powers of the EFCC, to “bark and bite.
“We are here because the EFCC and NEITI are in this together, to rescue our country from indiscipline, malfeasance, mismanagement of public resources; to work together with the EFCC to seek avenues to channel our peoples’ mind to living legitimate lives and adding content and public value to whatever assignment they have been given for the benefit of our citizens,” he said.
Orji promised to work with the EFCC to strengthen their position in order to protect the extractive industries resources from illegal miners and explorers.
He stressed: “We are very grateful that you have offered us the support and we will relate with mutual respect as two sister agencies and timely exchange of information and data will be very useful in this relationship.
“As an agency, we believe in the work the EFCC is doing and we are very proud of the courage and excellence that this institution has exhibited in the face of all kinds of challenges, and we will continue to encourage men and women of goodwill, fellow Nigerians that are working here that you are on the right track and you have an ally in NEITI”, the Executive Secretary enthused.
