Recovered Loots: Reps Quiz Bawa On ‘Suspicious Transfers’ Under Magu

• “I don’t know, maybe administrative exigencies must have warranted the management of that time to do one or two things…”

Some financial transactions made during the tenure of the former acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, on Wednesday, resurfaced at the ongoing House of Representatives probe into recovered loots.

These transactions were unearthed when the current boss of the EFCC, Abdulrasheed Bawa, appeared before the ad hoc committee investigating the status of recovered loots.

Bawa had earlier claimed that EFCC was a ‘fully-budgeted’ entity.

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“We don’t receive a single kobo from the recovery account,” he said.

A member of the committee, Darlington Nwakocha (PDP, Abia), flagged a transaction from 2017, showing that EFCC transfer ₦3 million to an entity, the Africa Association of Anti-Corruption Authorities.

“I heard him saying they don’t pay money to third parties from the recovery account. I can see this particular transfer on the 16th of April, 2017, to Africa Association of Anti-corruption Authorities which is to the tune of three-point something million,” Darlington said.

However, Bawa responded he has only been on the job for less than 100 days.

“Mr Chairman, as you are aware, I am less than 100 days in office. Even our accounting officer is less than 90 days in office. I can’t comment on what I don’t know about. I will have to refresh my memory on that to comment.”

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Other transactions were also flagged by the committee. Some of the transactions involved transfers to and from the EFCC account.

In his response, Bawa said: “I don’t know, maybe administrative exigencies must have warranted the management of that time to do one or two things. What I can assure you is that when we come back, we will look into them.”