NATIONAL ASSEMBLY DEMANDS BETTER FUNDING OF EFCC

Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Drugs, Narcotics and Financial Crimes, Honourable Jagaba Adams Jagaba, has decried the poor funding of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, by the executive arm of government.

Hon. Jagaba who was speaking on December 3, 2012, at the 2013 budget proposal defence by the Commission before the National Assembly decried the non-release of budgeted funds to the EFCC by the Federal Ministry of Finance.

His words, “it is even more saddening when funds have been appropriated for the agency in the budget of the federation by the National Assembly and the funds are not released”.

According to Hon. Jagaba, “we are not happy because if truly we want EFCC to work, EFCC must be funded properly. We cannot expect the EFCC to work with nothing. For instance, during the 2012 budget consideration, we discovered that nothing was proposed under Legal Services; the Committee then appropriated N200 million for legal services, but the executive said no to that. We are calling on those saddled with the release of budgeted funds to release the balance of your money under the 2012 budget”.

Earlier, EFCC Chairman, Ibrahim Lamorde, presented a budget proposal of Twenty One Billion, Twenty Eight Million, Four Hundred and Eighty Eight Thousand, Seven Hundred and Seventy Two Naira, Ninety Kobo (N21,028,488,772.90) for 2013, before the National Assembly.

He gave the breakdown of the proposed budget as follows: Capital Expenditure: Eleven Billion, Four Hundred and Twelve Million, Eight Hundred and Three thousand, Five Hundred and Eighty Two Naira, Fifty Kobo (N11,412,803,582.50)  ; Personnel Cost : Six Billion, Five Hundred and Fourteen Million, Five Hundred and Twenty Five Thousand, One Hundred and Twenty Seven Naira (N6,514,525,127,00)  ; and Overhead Cost : Three Billion, One Hundred and One Million, One Hundred and Sixty Thousand, Sixty Three Naira Forty Kobo (N3,101,160,063.40) .

Generally, the EFCC chairman pointed out that the EFCC proposal of N21.02Bn as against the N9.3Bn approved by the Budget Office of the Federation leaves a gap of N11.3Bn which could impact adversely on the operation of the agency.

He told the committee to note that “for 2013, the EFCC requested for N6.51 Billion for personnel cost, and only N5.8 was appropriated by the Budget Office, leaving a short fall of N710 Million. Due to this short fall, the Commission would not be able to meet its personnel cost fully in 2013”.

It would be recalled that Chairman of the Senate Committee on Drugs, Narcotics, Financial Crimes and Anti-Corruption, Senator Victor Lar had also on 22^nd November, 2012, advocated proper funding of the anti-graft agencies if the war against corruption and economic crimes in Nigeria is to be taken seriously.

The Senator had said that there exists a want of harmony between the verbal pronouncements of the government and the financing of the fight against economic and financial crimes.

While advocating for proper funding of the Commission, the senator said more needs to be done with regards to building capacity of staff of the EFCC.  “It is not in doubt that the expectation of the Nigerians on the direction, speed, scope, effectiveness in the fight against corruption rests with the economic and financial crimes commission”, he declared.