Nigeria suspended from Egmont group, may experience economic set back
- Egmont group, a global body which monitors international money laundering activities, has suspended Nigeria
- The suspension is likely to affect the country's anti-graft war
- Nigerian may end up being expelled and this will affect the country’s ability to recover stolen funds abroad
Nigeria has been suspended and may likely be expelled from the Egmont group, a global company monitoring money laundering activities in the world.
Nigeria will be expelled from the global body which provides the backbone for monitoring international money laundering activities if it fails to comply with the group’s demands for a legal framework granting autonomy to the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) by January 2018.
According to a report by The Cable, if the country is expelled, it will no longer be able to benefit from financial intelligence shared by the other 153 member countries, including the US and the UK, while the country’s ability to recover stolen funds abroad will also be hampered.
The federal government of Nigeria is currently seeking to recover looted funds laundered globally by politicians and their associates.
Another consequence of an expulsion will be the blacklisting of Nigeria in international finance, and this could affect the issuance of Mastercard and Visa credit and debit cards by Nigerian banks.
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It could also affect the international rating of Nigerian financial institutions, restricting their access to some big-ticket international transactions.
Nigeria’s admittance into the group in 2007 is considered to be one of the biggest achievements of the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration.
The membership ensured the removal of Nigerian banks from the blacklist of international finance.
The suspension was reportedly caused partly by the failure of the federal government to pass a law making NFIU autonomous.
The group mandates the Nigerian government to make NFIU autonomous in its funding, operations and management of intelligence.
But NFIU is currently domiciled at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), although the Nigerian government says it is run as an autonomous unit.
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The group is also said to be worried by the constant leaking of sensitive intelligence to Nigerian media, contrary to the global best practices the country signed up for.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump's government on Wednesday, July 12, inaugurated a web-based platform to support President Muhammadu Buhari's fight against corruption.
The platform is founded by the United States Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement and was developed by BudgIT.
Mr David Young in his remark said that the platform will seek to address the daily instances of corruption faced by millions of Nigerians.
Watch this Legit.ng video of the EFCC staging a walk against corruption:
Source: Legit.ng
