President Muhammadu Buhari (File Photo) |
President Muhammadu Buhari has
signed the bill seeking to make the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU)
an autonomous body instead of merely existing as a department in the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Ita Enang, senior special assistant to the president on national
assembly (senate), disclosed this while addressing state house correspondents
in Abuja on Wednesday.
“NFIU will now be domiciled in
the Central Bank of Nigeria, but as an autonomous and Independent body,” Enang
said.
With the signing of the Act, NFIU has been empowered to receive
currency transactions reports, suspicious transactions reports, currency declaration
reports and other information relating to money laundering and extremists
financing activities from financial institutions.
The unit will also receive reports on cross-border movement of
currency and monetary instruments, maintain a comprehensive financial
intelligence database for information collection, analysis and exchange with
counterpart FIUs and law enforcement agencies around the world.
The senate had passed the bill in July last year while the house
of representatives passed it in March this year
Last year, TheCable reported the suspension of Nigeria by Egmont
Group because of the “interference” of the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC) in the workings of the unit.
The Egmont Group is the global body responsible for setting standards
on best practices for FIUs in over 131 FIUs from 131 jurisdictions.
It was founded in 1995 to foster international collaboration in
the exchange of intelligence by member states.
In December, Ibrahim Magu, acting chairman of the EFCC, disclosed
that the commission has granted the NFIU autonomy.
“We have allowed NFIU to go. They are
operationally autonomy independent of EFCC,” he had said.
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