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Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Dimeji Bankole, yesterday accused the executive arm of government of master-minding most cases of money laundering which runs into trillions of naira in the past 10 years.
He also told anti-corruption agencies to concentrate on those who launder money and leave members of the House alone.
Bankole, who was speaking yesterday at an anti money-laundering forum tagged, “Innovative Strategies to Combat Money Laundering and Cyber Crimes,” in Abuja, said during recent probes conducted by the National Assembly, N450 billion was returned to the treasury, N2 trillion was appropriated for the Power Sector without power, N1.6 trillion was also discovered not to have been remitted to the government treasury by tax collecting agencies, which all belong to the executive arm of government.
“For the first time in history, these monies were discovered courtesy of the National Assembly, now the question is what has been happening to similar monies in the past before we came on board, now the truth is that these monies have been laundered.
“I really don’t know how we are going to start to attempt to solve the problem. Well, let me just put it this way, last year, we returned N450 billion to the treasury, for the first time in history. The question is what has been happening to all those money in the budget before we came on board, where are the gains? Secondly, $16 billion was appropriated for power, that is about N2 trillion, yet we don’t have power.
“For the finance and revenue agencies, we discovered about a month ago that N1.6 trillion was not remitted. That is trillion not even million now. the NNPC one, we have not even started yet. Now, these monies are obviously laundered; you now begin to ask yourself, it follows this theory that there must be a crime before these monies are laundered. I now implore ICPC and EFCC that as long as you can look for these members, those citizens rather, that have stolen maybe a million dollars or 10 million dollars, you should begin to look inside as well and stop harassing members of the House of Representatives.”
He said, “the House don’t spend this money, it is the executive that does it. We only appropriate, we leave them to execute and if they are executing and the figures are popping up like this and you are going after the pick pockets when the real armed robber is on the street there, then, I am sorry, you are missing it.
“You asked for us to support the EFCC, well, maybe you should also advice the press that when your chief executive comes to us or calls me for a meeting, you donít spread it the next morning and say they came to quiz me.
“These things are easy to divert attention from the real thing. If we are truly serious about doing this business, we go after the biggest spenders; the biggest spenders are in government. It is as simple as that. However, it is not clarion call to be attacking ministers or civil servants and the rest of them. No, not at all,” he said.
Bankole said “Switzerland today has an economy that was developed and is shining based on money laundered from Africa. Nobody is calling them criminals. You stand here and tell us that we are not clean. We are very clean in Nigeria, we are exceedingly clean. Until when we start asking Switzerland to return all those money laundered in the last 25 years from Nigeria, then you have a right to accuse us as an unclean nation.
“If we were to call a spade a spade, I am not disrespecting Switzerland of course, but it is illegal to take any money to Switzerland and nothing happens. You can take it from Nigeria, you can take it from Congo, you can even take it to London, the U.S., yes, the United States even the United Kingdom; all those monies would be taken from Nigeria and the question is how much have they returned and you have been shouting. What is ICPC and EFCC’s role in asking for those monies back as well? Those are the issues. We will continue to support, if you ask us. If you harass us, we don’t even mind, we will continue to support the EFCC and ICPC ,” Bankole said.

From Stanley Nkwazema in Abuja, 09.04.2008

Source:http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=121566