"Federal Government Lack The Political Will To Deal With Money Launders" - National Assembly

The National Assembly has accused the Federal Government of lacking the political will to deal with offenders under the Anti-Money Laundering Act.

The Senate and the House of Representatives said it was the government’s lack of the will to go after money launderers that was responsible for the non-enforcement of the Act.

Nigeria’s name is still on the list of Financial Action Task Force, a global watch dog on money-laundering, because of the Federal Government’s alleged poor record in combating the scourge. The FATF de-listed Nigeria from the list of Non-Cooperating Jurisdictions and Territories in June 2006.

Nigeria, however, returned to the obnoxious list of countries with weak enforcement of money laundering laws in February 2012, where it shares the inglorious fame with 14 other nations.

Revelations at the recent probe of the pension scheme by the Senate showed that billions of naira were reportedly lodged in private accounts, in breach of extant financial regulations. Also, the probe by both chambers of the National Assembly on fuel subsidy revealed shady financial transactions by phoney companies believed to have been floated by influential Nigerians.

Commercial banks are obligated by law to report any cash lodgement in excess of N1m and N5m respectfully for individual and corporate bodies to anti-graft agencies for monitoring. But pension scam lodgements and similar others were not reported to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and sister agencies.

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Drugs/Narcotics and Anti-Corruption, Senator Victor Lar, and his counterparts in the House of Representatives, Mr. Adams Jagaba, said the Act was being regularly flouted. They argued that either the banks failed to notify anti-graft agencies on the breaches or the agencies simply failed to go after the offenders.

Lar, who spoke with newsmen in Abuja, observed that there was “poor supervision and negligence of duty by relevant law enforcers.” He added, “There are so many good laws today that are not being implemented. This is not because the laws are defective, but because some persons charged with that responsibility are not working.”

According to him, the Anti-Money Laundering Act provides that an alert be sent to the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Agency Unit, whenever major lodgements are made into any account. “We do not know if such is being followed strictly; if not, it means that someone is not working or the technology involved is faulty,” he remarked.

Similarly, Jagaba noted that government was aware of the daily huge cash deposits in banks in breach of the law but had not reacted to the situation.

The lawmaker cited the Central Bank of Nigeria, a key federal agency, “which also has a responsibility of monitoring these banks, but does not do anything.” He stated, “Government has no political will to implement the law. The major problem is that Nigeria keeps making laws that are neither obeyed nor implemented. The anti-money laundering law is one of them.

“Why can’t government sanction the banks? The CBN is not doing its work because it also has the responsibility to monitor the operations of these banks. “They see stolen money passing through the banks and nothing is done about it. People who flout this law are left to go scot-free.

“Nigerians have to look in and be united to fight corruption, irrespective of tribe or religious differences. “Nigerians celebrate thieves; that is why it is difficult to sanction the banks.”