BEVERLY HILLS, May 28, (THEWILL) – The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has seized jewellery worth N14 billion from former Minister of Petroleum, Diezani Allison-Madueke.
The EFCC Chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, made this known at the House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigating the assessment and status of recovered loot on Friday in Abuja.
He also said that houses seized from the former Minister were also valued at $80 million.
The anti-graft Chairman said that Diezani’s jewellery were still in the custody of the agency, adding that it had not been auctioned but had been finally forfeited to the Federal Government.
He said that court processes, procedures and administrative exigencies had stalled some of the seized assets from being auctioned by the anti=graft agency.
Bawa however said that the agency would henceforth deal with the seized assets case by case at the courts in order to quickly dispose of the assets.
“Already the Federal Government has set up a committee under the chairmanship of the Solicitor-General for the Federation and I think they are working tirelessly,” he said.
This according to him is to ensure that assets that were not only recovered by the EFCC but the entirety of the recovery agencies assets were disposed of.
“We have EFCC representatives from that committee and we believe at the end of the day Nigerians are going to appreciate what that committee will come out with in term of the mandate given to them,” he said.
Asked when the committee would wind up so the assets could be disposed, Bawa said that he was not a member of the committee to know how soon the assets were going to be disposed
Bawa said that in its quest to transform the agency, it would soon digitalise its processes, adding that it had also created and upgraded four additional departments to restore confidence.
He listed the departments to include: Intelligence, procurement, Internal Affairs and the Information Communication Technology Department
Bawa said that there was no loot that had been re-looted as being speculated, stressing that going forward, the EFCC would be different and Nigerians would be the better for it.
He said that he would always honour the National Assembly to account for what the agency had done, adding that public servants come and go but the institution would remain.
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