The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa, has hinted that the N14.46 billion jewellery and other properties recovered from a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Allison Madueke during the former President Goodluck Jonathan administration are still with the commission.
He made this disclosure on Saturday when he appeared before the House of Representatives Adhoc Committee investigating the status of recovered loot, movable and immovable properties from 2002 to 2020.
He said the jewellery, valued at N14.60 billion and other property, estimated at over $80 million, had not been auctioned.
According to him; “They are in our custody. They have been finally forfeited. The commission is looking forward to the presidential committee to auction all these items and deposit the money appropriately.
“We got the forfeiture order sometimes in 2019. A lot of processes and events hinder us to proceed with the auction as you are aware sir. We couldn’t move on with some of these things because of certain things that happened,” he said.
The committee raised concern over the possible deterioration in the value of recovered assets, which recovery agencies are holding in their custodies.
While responding, the EFCC Chairman said some legal and administrative bottlenecks were the main reasons hindering disposal of recovered assets.
Asked about how the EFCC disposes non cash assets, he replied that there were laid down rules for the disposal of recovered assets, which he said were being followed.
After the submissions of the EFCC chairman, the committee said they were satisfied with various explanations about the operations and status of seized assets.
