Bankers are now to declare their assets as part of efforts to curb financial crimes in Nigeria.
This was disclosed by the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), AbdulRasheed Bawa at the State House, Abuja after unveiling his plan to President Mohammadu Buhari on Tuesday.
The EFCC chairman also said more attention would be devoted to cyber crime, which he said had become a huge problem for Nigeria.
Bawa said: “We understood that the tail end of every financial crime is for the criminal to have access to the funds that he or she has illegitimately gotten.
“We’re worried about the roles of financial institutions. We have discussed, but we hope that all (staff of) financial institutions, particularly the bankers, will declare their assets as provided for by the law, in accordance with the Bank Employees Declaration of Asset Act.
“The EFCC, come the 1st of June 2021, will be demanding this asset declaration forms, filled by the bankers so that the line that we have drawn from the first of June is really complied with by all bankers.”
Bawa, who said the president had accepted his proposal, stressed that the move would enhance financial sanity and make it easy to track illegally acquired funds.
“We reviewed a lot of things that we want to do towards eradication of financial crimes. As you are aware, I was here about two weeks ago before taking over.
“He (Buhari) is happy with what he has heard so far with the reforms we are working on with the new EFCC going forward, in terms of the way we investigate, prosecute and the way we are generally executing our mandate.
“My assurance to Nigerians, going forward, is that we are going to do our best to ensure that this country is free of financial crimes.”
He called on young Nigerians to shun cybercrime because it is giving Nigeria a bad image globally.
