The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFFC) have agreed to partner to ensure transparency in the government’s reform and privatisation programme, the Bureau has said.
The agreement was reached when Alex Okoh, BPE’s DG, requested for the collaboration during a courtesy visit to the Acting Chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, at the commission’s corporate office in Abuja recently, the Bureau said in an emailed statement today. Okoh explained that the activities of the Bureau reflect the principles of transparency that the EFCC propagates.
The EFCC’s Acting Chairman accepted the request and pledged the Commission’s readiness “to partner with the BPE in all its transactions,’’ according to the statement.
Okoh commended the EFCC for the achievements it has recorded over the years, especially in the sanitisation of the nation’s economy, which he said has increased investors’ confidence.
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Magu decorated the visiting BPE DG as Anti-Corruption Ambassador, while the visitor said that he was at the Commission to solicit the EFCC’s support to ensure that the activities of the BPE are better monitored.
According to Okoh, “the EFCC has provided a platform and atmosphere that have enhanced comfort and confidence in the investors who we directly deal with on a regular basis, the kind of comfort to engage and invest in this economy.’’ He added that the BPE is an agency of government that is mandated to provide sector and enterprise reforms as they relate to government and state owned enterprises”, he added.
The BPE DG informed his host that the Bureau over the years had conducted transactions in the various sectors of the Nigerian economy which have brought huge revenue to the Federal Government and improved service delivery.
In his response, Magu said the EFCC was ready to carry out due diligence on any entity that shows interest in the purchase of government assets in order to prevent corrupt elements from using the privatisation process as a means of laundering illegally acquired funds.
“We will be willing to support you against any threat that will discourage investors from coming into the country and in order to achieve this; I think we need to establish a common desk for a seamless synergy,’’ Magu said. “Once again, I seize this opportunity to thank the BPE and I am happy to tell you that the baby you nurtured has now outgrown its parents as the EFCC today can boost of a befitting Head Office complex which was made possible by our determination and support from the current administration.”
Magu thanked the BPE for its support during the evolution of the Commission saying that the N100million received from the BPE as take-off support helped the Commission to start its operations. “If we hadn’t gotten that money, we wouldn’t have been able to kick-start”, he confessed.
Magu explained that the money brought some seriousness into EFCC’s operations and “we started arresting those fraudsters who hitherto were seen as ‘untouchable’ moving around with convoys and sirens. Many of them were arrested and jailed and the Commission recovered substantial amounts of money on behalf of so many victims from them which were restituted to the victims.”
