Anti-graft War: Senate Seeks Budget Increment For EFCC

The Senate Committee on Anti-corruption and Financial Crimes said the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) deserves increased budgetary allocation to carry out its duties effectively.

The committee chairman, Senator Udende Emmanuel, stated this yesterday when the senate committee visited the commission‘s headquarters in Abuja on oversight function.

The committee chairman honestly said that the EFCC requires more funding. „When the EFCC chairman tells you that he needs software that will tackle partial and fraudulent cryptocurrency trading, valued at about N3.4 billion, then you will understand why they need more funding. What we will do is to increase their funding through budgetary allocation,“ Senator Udende stated.

He also said the EFCC deserves a percentage of its recoveries to assist its operations, just like the customs gets a percentage of its seizures.

Earlier, the EFCC chairman, Ola Olukayode, SAN, told the committee that adequate funding was one of its most significant challenges. To carry out its duties effectively, the EFCC would need to increase its 2024 budget by about 300 per cent.

Olukayode lamented the effects of corruption on general activities in Nigeria and said it would investigate government agencies that corruptly diverted budgetary allocation to other things or were completely embezzled.

The anti-graft agency boss also stated that it is investigating the extractive industry and that people will soon be charged in court.

While lamenting the issue of pricing things in Dollars in Nigeria, the EFCC chairman said that despite all efforts to address it, some businesses are still selling and trading in Dollars, and the EFCC will keep hunting them down.