- EFCC is in a better position to investigate the banks. But there can be collaboration
Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Prof Bolaji Owasanoye, has restated the concerns of most Nigerians about the complicity of financial services sector operatives in the widespread financial crimes plaguing the country. Describing to a visiting team from the Bank of Industry “how some financial institutions condone unethical conducts by opening accounts for criminals and how they use innuendos to make suggestions of criminality to lure customers”, he pledged the commission’s commitment to work together with financial institutions in order to rid them of corrupt elements – as, according to him, “one bad apple can ruin the entire bunch”.
We do understand where the ICPC chief is coming from. To have any chance of success, the fight against corruption must be as widespread as multi-sectoral. And to the extent that the financial services sector has mutated from being passive enablers to being active conduits for most of the illicit transactions referenced, going after the vast financial network would seem an integral part of the war.
The problem is whether this is what the ICPC is called to do. To our understanding, the ICPC is primarily charged with fighting corruption in the public sector while the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has its remit in investigation and prosecution of all manner of financial crimes, including those involving the banks. We can only urge the ICPC to be well guided to avoid needless turf wars with the sister agency.
The big challenge, as it appears, is the apparent lack of synergy between the different anti-graft agencies. Given that the EFCC and the ICPC have a shared objective of ridding the country of different shades of criminality, there is at the moment, a lot to say about the ingrained culture of insularity under which agencies have tended to act without reference to one another, even when better and faster results could have been obtained by sharing intelligence. Of course, while the two agencies have different remits, their functions should not necessarily be seen as parallel lines that would never meet; they should rather see periodic intersections in activities, whenever they occur, as inevitable part of the job as well as an opportunity for meaningful collaboration.
We therefore expect, going forward, the two agencies not just to forge a working framework but to invest in a common intelligence pool as part of measures to strengthen and deepen the anti-graft war. Surely, that is what national interest dictates.
Fighting the crime is however one layer of the problem. The other layer is to ensure that the regulations are observed as well as the ethics that underpin them. To the extent that the failure of the latter two almost inevitably leads to the criminal breaches, it seems only necessary that due attention be paid to them to limit the scale of criminal infractions. That is where bodies like the ICPC and EFCC should be looking at as long-term strategies to make their job easier. This is perhaps where collaboration is most needed with the industry taking the lead through the Bankers Committee and the Chartered Institute of Bankers (CIBN). This is even more pressing now that the image of the profession has been terribly tainted by the activities of some powerful, delinquent actors in recent years. In other words, how to restore discipline, shore up capacity and help rebuild trust for the institutions should be uppermost in the minds of the leaders of the industry.
