President Goodluck Jonathan has assured prospective investors in Nigeria that they have nothing to fear about the possibility of losing their investments to advance fee fraud or any of the other related economic crimes as the country’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has brought such incidents to the barest minimum.
The president who gave the assurance at the just concluded Nigeria Investment Summit and Exhibition in New York, USA said the anti-graft agency has done excellently well in the discharge of its mandate and still breaking new grounds to cleanse the system and make it conducive for local and foreign investments to thrive.
This is coming even as the Chairman of the anti-graft agency, Mrs Farida Waziri, declared in her presentation at the summit organised on the sideline of the 66th United Nations General Assembly by the African Business Roundtable in conjunction with Nigeria’s Mission in the UN, that the EFCC has successfully put in place relevant preventive measures to safeguard prospective investors from losing their investments to any fraudster.
While declaring that he is impressed with the performance of the EFCC so far, President Jonathan said “our investors can be rest assured that their investments are safe in Nigeria and fraudsters pose no threat again because the EFCC has almost eradicated the problem of advance fee fraud in our country.â€Â
He said the Commission was also breaking new grounds in the investigation and prosecution of high profile graft cases, stressing that the major challenge of slow trial went beyond the EFCC but an issue for the judiciary to tackle.
In her presentation at the Summit where former British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair presented the keynote paper, the EFCC boss listed some of the milestones already achieved to instil a culture of transparency, and accountability as well as attract needed direct foreign investment that would help rev and stimulate the Nigerian economy to its full capacity.
According to her, “the supply side of corruption (the givers) have a big role to play in dismantling safe heavens that provide facilities for laundering the proceeds of crime in their financial institutions. The damning 2010 report by the London based Global Witness chronicled how British Banks (HSBC, RBS, NATWEST and USB) facilitated corruption in Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea. The international investment Community must therefore stand up against this.â€Â
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