ICPC recovered N8.7b, 124 vehicles from corrupt officials in 2016

No governor indicted over Paris Club loan, says EFCC

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Offences Commission (ICPC) yesterday said it recovered a total of N8.705b and 124 vehicles from corrupt officials in the private and public sectors in 2016.

Of the 1,569 petitions received, 70 cases were filed and 11 convictions were secured, while 303 criminal cases were ongoing last year, even as low budgetary allocation prevented the execution of capital projects.

Chairman of the anti-graft agency, Ekpo Nta, made this known while giving account of its year 2016 activities yesterday in Abuja at a parley with media practitioners.

He said out of the N8.7billion recovered, N6billion was frozen with the Infrastructure Bank, N292million was in the Treasury Single Account (TSA) recovery account while N1.6billion includes pension funds paid to beneficiaries of the Nigeria Electricity Liability Management Company (NELMCO), among others.

Nta also explained that N20.8million was money from the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) Multi-purpose Co-operative Society and others. N698.4 million was recovered out of which N668.5million was refunded to Kano State from SURE-P funds, while the balance recovery was money extorted from students of FUNAAB and others.

He cited the Hon. Abdulmumin Jubril budget padding petition as a systems study and review to identify and correct system weaknesses. Specifically, he said the establishment of the Anti-Corruption Transparency Unit (ACTU) 427 federal and state Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) were inaugurated.

Meanwhile, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has said neither the Senate President, Abubakar Bukola Saraki, nor governors of the 36 states were indicted in its investigation into the Paris Club loan reimbursement.

EFCC spokesman, Wilson Uwujaren said in a statement yesterday that investigations into the matter was still at the preliminary stage and those principal officers have not been indicted.

He implored the media to be circumspect in their reportage so as not to jeopardise the investigation. Uwujaren added that the media would be fully briefed of developments as soon as breakthrough was achieved.