How We Recovered N1bn From A Civil Servant’s Account

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Thursday said it recovered over N1 billion cash in a single bank account belonging to a civil servant last week.

EFCC chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, stated this while appearing before the Senate committee on Finance investigating the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and payment of 1% stamp duty by contractors on all contracts awarded by MDAs between 2014- 2020.

Bawa said there are a lot of leakages that needed to be blocked, adding that it was not about revenue generation.

“Last week, we recovered over N1 billion in one bank account belonging to a civil servant,” he said.

The EFCC boss, however, applauded the Senate committee on Finance for its investigations into the internally generated revenues of MDAs and the payment of 1 per cent Stamp Duty by contractors on all contracts awarded by MDAs between 2014 and 2020.

“After observing the proceedings and the process of investigation of the Committee, I am happy with what is happening here. It is a good development that the committee is working towards blocking revenue leakages. At this point in the nation’s history, it is not about generating revenue but it is also about blocking leakages of revenue generated and still being generated by all these agencies of government,” he stated.

Bawa said he would have been happy to go away with one of the heads of agencies immediately from the revelations that the committee unearthed in the course of observing the documents presented by the agency, stressing that he would be ready to partner with the committee as the process goes on and hopefully get the report of the committee for further action.

He noted that since he assumed office, he has created four new departments in the EFCC, two of which are to ensure that due process is followed and there are no audit queries adding that other MDAs can copy the template of the EFCC.