The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has pledged to work with the Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) to retrieve about N1.2 trillion worth of operating surplus held by defaulting Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government.
Its chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, made the pledge when the chairman of the FRC, Victor Muruako, and his management team visited him at the EFCC headquarters, Jabi, Abuja.
Bawa, who promised that EFCC would work with the FRC in blocking budget leakages, said recovery of the said N1.2 trillion will go a long way to shore up revenues for use by government for public service delivery.
A statement by the FRC head of Strategic Communications, Bede Anyanwu, said the EFCC helmsman was reacting to a disclosure by Muruako, that while the FRC has recorded significant gains in blocking wastage in public finance management, about N1.2 trillion has remained in the hands of defaulting that have applied different means, including smart accounting, to deny payment to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) of the Federal Government.
Muruako identified the absence of enforcement powers in the commission’s enabling law as a major weakness, hampering its efforts in enforcing fiscal transparency among agencies of government, and requested the intervention of the EFCC to enable it achieve its mandate.
“FRC recognises that we can hardly achieve our key aim and objective of ensuring the long term stability of the nation’s economy without the assistance of your commission. For one, we believe the credibility of the economic system in Nigeria is a prerequisite for achieving economic stability and this is where EFCC comes in,” he said.
Muruako also urged the EFCC to revisit the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the two agencies with a view to expanding the frontiers of cooperation and collaboration.