Oredola Adeola
In what looks like a last minute attempt to avoid the country’s permanent expulsion from the membership of the Egmont Group of 156 members of Financial Intelligent Units FIUs), the leadership of the Senate and House of Representative have agreed to speedily harmonise the bill for passage latest on Tuesday.
Senator Bukola Saraki, President of the Senate , via his personal Twitter handle- @ BukolaSaraki- on Sunday revealed that the bill would be passed “ this week” after his intervention in the dispute between the Senate and the House of Representatives on the harmonisation of versions of the bill .
According to him, “ Following my meeting on Thursday with Speaker @ YakubDogara , the Chairman @ NGRSenate Committee on Anti-Corruption and @ HouseNGR Chairman on Financial Crimes , the conference committee meeting for the NFIU Bill will hold tomorrow (Monday ) and the report presented in both chambers on Tuesday.
“ I am confident that we will pass the NFIU Bill this week, he ended his tweets.
If passed and forwarded to President Muhammadu Buhari for his assent, the bill establishing the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit, will therefore make the Unit an independent entity.
Recall that Nigeria was suspended from the group at its 24th Plenary session held in Macao,SAR(China) from 2nd to 7th, July, 2017, after the Group noticed the absence of operational autonomy for the country’s Financial Intelligence Unit, domiciled as an administrative FIU in EFCC.
The Group also fingered absence of confidentiality in the handling of financial intelligence by the EFCC.
According to the Group, “following repeated failures on the part of the FIU, (Nigeria) to address concerns regarding the protection of confidential information, specifically related to the status of suspicious transaction report (STR) details and information derived from international exchanges, as well as concerns on the legal basis and clarity of the NFIU’s independence from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The body noted that, “the measure will remain in force until immediate corrective actions are implemented.
However, if the country failed to comply with the group's demand for a legal framework granting autonomy to the NFIU in the next few days, before the group reconvene next Monday , 11th March, 2017, Nigeria’s membership may be permanently revoked with grave consequence.
Findings by this newspaper show that the Senate and the House of Representative have recently passed versions of the NFIU bill, but there were few differences that would require a conference committee of the two Chambers to harmonise, before a final bill is adopted and transmitted to President Muhammadu Buhari for his assent.
However the committee’s conference was delayed due to the personality dispute between the Chairman , Senate Committee on Financial Crimes and Anti- Corruption , Senator Chukwuka Utazi , and the Chairman , House Committee on Financial Crimes, Mr. Kayode Oladele .
The warring panel chairmen were ordered to convene a conference committee meeting on Monday (today ) to harmonise the reports on the bill establishing the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit as an independent entity .
This newspaper also gathered that if the bill is not harmonised and assented by President Buhari before Monday, March 12, 2018, the country will no longer benefit from financial intelligence shared by the other one hundred and fifty-six member-countries, including the United States of America and the United Kingdom, while the country’s ability to recover stolen funds abroad will be hampered.
Besides, Nigeria will face blacklisting in international finance.
The immediate consequence is that this could affect the use of credit cards, as the credit lines offered by corresponding banks would be cut off.
In fact, financial instruments from Nigeria may not be honoured abroad.
Expulsion could also affect the international rating of Nigerian financial institutions, restricting their access to some major international transactions.
It should be noted that Nigeria’s membership of the Egmont Group ensured the removal of Nigerian banks from the blacklist of international finance.
The blacklisting of Nigeria in 2001, for instance, prevented the banks from engaging in correspondent banking with foreign institutions and also denied Nigerians access and ability to use foreign credit cards.
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