by Azeez Adeniyi

The House of Representatives on Tuesday ordered an audit of all assets seized by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

The House said the assets include those already forfeited to the Federal Government.

It said the assets included cash, “moveable and immovable” items like cars and landed properties.

It directed the Committee on Financial Crimes to conduct the audit within six weeks.

The House asked the committee to ascertain the “legality of their current values and make appropriate recommendations to the House.”

This was after the lawmaker representing Ikorodu Federal Constituency of Lagos State, Mr. Babajimi Benson moved a motion.

Benson said there was no information on assets seized by the EFCC.

Chairman, House Committee on Public Accounts, Mr. Kingsley Chinda, told the House that many Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government rarely kept a register of seized assets.

He claimed that the agencies destroy some of the seized assets to cover up the theft of such properties.

He said, “Our MDAs don’t maintain asset registers.

“This is issue not about the EFCC alone. They can claim to have destroyed seized assets just to cover up other things.

“Like the Nigerian Customs Service seizing bags of rice and destroying them.

“Why are they destroying the rice when we have internally displaced persons in camps all over the place?

“Officials can hide under the lack of keeping records to divert or do certain things to the assets.”