ACBF Ready to help Nigeria Develop Agency to Coordinate Tackling of Illicit Funds Flow

Mon, Sep 24, 2018 | By publisher


Business

The African Capacity Building Foundation, ACBF, the specialized agency of the African Union for capacity development, can help Nigeria create an institution to coordinate the activities of all its agencies involved in fighting illicit financial flows, IFF, to enable them perform better.

Prof. Emmanuel Nnadozie, Foundation’s executive secretary, made the offer recently at the Second Abuja International Conference on combating IFF, saying that such a coordinating body would help in capacity development and information sharing among the country’s anti-corruption agencies. It will also provide regulatory and legislative support, assist with monitoring and evaluation, as well as enhance asset recovery and repatriation, he said.

“ACBF can help in establishing such an institutional mechanism,” he said. “The challenges experienced by these institutions overwhelm their implementation capacities.”

Prof. Nnadozie said Nigeria’s anti-corruption bodies are beset with challenges such as shortages of funds, duplication of responsibilities, inadequate skills, and insufficient equipment.

In spite of these challenges, Nigeria represents the most successful case of asset recovery by a country, having so far recovered $2.3 billion illicitly transferred by the late military head of state Gen. Sani Abacha, he said.

The ACBF can help them to mobilize resources, conduct capacity needs assessment, develop capacity and implement programs to address gaps identified during the assessment exercise, he said.  The Foundation also trains parliamentarians to track, stop and retrieve IFF from Africa, said Prof. Nnadozie.

Among institutions that could benefit from the proposal are the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission, the Nigeria Customs Service, the Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency, and the Special Control Unit against Money Laundering, he said.

ACBF, based in Harare, was last year designated as the African Union’s specialized agency for capacity development. Since its inception in 1991, it has committed more than $30 million to developing human and institutional capacity in Nigeria. Its support for the National Institute for Legislative Studies, NILS, Abuja helps lawmakers to perform better; it is developing science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills of the youth at the African University of Science and Technology, AUST, also in Abuja, and improving the expertise of public policy makers at the Lagos-based West African Institute of Financial and Economic Management, WAIFEM.

– Sept. 24, 2018 @ 18:35 GMT |

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