EFCC, FRC Collaborate To Block Budget Leakages

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) will partner to curb budget leakages and recover operating surpluses unremitted by government agencies.

Stating this in a statement, was the Chairman of the EFCC, Abdulrasheed Bawa, on Wednesday, while playing host to the Chairman of the FRC, Victor Muruako, who paid Bawa a courtesy visit.

Established in 2007 under the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), 2007, Act No.31, the FRC was set up to enforce the nation’s economic objectives.

However, Murako, during the visit, expressed hope that the support of the EFCC would help it achieve its mandate to ensure fiscal transparency.

Murako shared that a lack of enforcement support in the commission served as a weakness towards meeting its mandate.

He said, “Fiscal Responsibility Commission, FRC recognizes that we can hardly achieve our key aim and objective of ensuring the long term stability of the nation’s economy without the assistance of your Commission.

“For one, we believe that the credibility of the economic system in Nigeria is a prerequisite for achieving economic stability and this is where EFCC comes in.”

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He also appealed to the EFCC to expand its pledge of support by training personnel of the FRC and hone their policing of “blue-chip government agencies”.

Responding to Murako, Bawa said, “I want to assure you that the EFCC knows your importance, knows your capabilities, knows the information that you can give us is invaluable. We want to assure you that, like any other thing we do here, when somebody say something, we are certainly going to do something about it.

“We are in this together, Nigeria is the only country that we have. We are serving the same government, we are serving the same master which is our fatherland and we should be able to collectively work towards achieving that mandate.”