Individuals, Firms Loot N1.3trn in 4 Years -Magu

• Individuals, Firms Loot N1.3trn in 4 Years -Magu

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Monday disclosed that 32 individuals and corporate organizations in the country looted over N1.3 trillion between 2011 and 2015.

The Acting Chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, said during a keynote address at the opening ceremony of the 2019 First Batch Conversion Training Programme to Procurement Cadre for Federal Parastatals and Agencies, organized by the Bureau of Public Procurement, in Lagos.

The EFCC boss, who was represented by the Commission’s Secretary, Ola Olukoyede, blamed the huge financial loss on the poor state of the procurement process in Nigeria. According to him, corruption continued to thrive in government agencies and parastatals.

He said, “One third of this money (N1.3trn), using World Bank rates and cost, could have comfortably been used to construct well over 500km of roads; build close to 200 schools; educate about 4000 children from primary to tertiary levels at N25million per child; build 20,000 units of two-bedroom houses across the country and do even more.

“The cost of this grand theft, therefore, is that these roads, schools and houses will never be built and these children will never have access to quality education because a few rapacious individuals had cornered for themselves what would have helped secure the lives of the future generations, thereby depriving them of quality education and healthcare, among others.”

Tony Orilade, the acting EFCC spokesman, in a statement, said the training organised by the BPP will empower the participants with the tools, knowledge, and understanding they need to carry out their duties in an efficient and transparent manner.

“I sincerely hope that at the end of this training, we will see a few cases of financial propriety in our procurement processes in government agencies and parastatal; Indeed, corruption could kill Nigeria, if we do not scale up our proficiency in contract and procurement management process,” Magu said.