ABUJA – The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has formally asked the National Assembly for powers to retain a part of loots recovered by it.
Spokesperson of the commission, Mrs Rasheedat Okoduwa, disclosed this in a statement on Friday.
Okoduwa said the request was one of the proposals made by the commission through a memorandum submitted to the House of Representatives Committee on Anti-Corruption.
The memorandum was submitted by the ICPC’s Acting Chairman, Mr Abdullahi Bako.
It said that retention of a percentage of the recovered loots would further strengthen the agency financially.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) through its Acting Chairman, Mr Ibrahim Magu, had made a similar request on Oct. 19, 2016.
Magu told an anti-corruption conference in Abuja that the practice globally was for anti-graft agencies to retain certain percentage of the proceeds of crime recovered by them.
“In some jurisdictions like the UK, proceeds of crime are further used to strengthen the agency,” he said.
“In EFCC, we have been struggling for years to build our headquarters and when I think of the billions of Naira we recover, I can see what would have happened if we are allowed to apply a percentage of this recovery into our operations.
“There is the need for an Act to make a provision for an application of the proceeds of crime into recapitalising the anti-graft agencies,’’ he said.
