The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Sunday in
Abuja, blamed the nation’s vulnerability to fraud, terrorism and crime
on its operation of a cash-based economy. Speaking in an interview , the Secretary to the commission, Mr.
Emmanuel Akomaye, said that the ease of cash flow occasioned by the
cash-based economy made the nation so vulnerable.
He said that
because of the cash-based economy, it was very difficult to track money
as people carried huge sums of money in cash and did whatever business
they liked without being tracked.
Akomaye said that if huge
transactions were made to go through the financial institutions, they
could be easily tracked and as such the nation’s vulnerability to such
crimes would be reduced.
We are really highly vulnerable and
one of the key reasons is this; we are a cash-based economy and that
entails that it is difficult to track money.Elsewhere, every
transaction goes through a financial institution; you can hardly go to
some countries and bring out 5000 dollars to make a transaction.
It
necessarily would pass through a financial institution, but here
because we are substantially cash-based, it therefore means that it’s a
huge challenge to track money as you well know that we carry huge cash
here and it’s becoming a challenge.Even the terror problem that we
currently have in the country, one of the challenges is to determine:
how are these people funded? Some of the operations are very
sophisticated.
You can conjecture that the level of their
sophistication and operation necessarily means that they are properly
funded. I mean it’s not a poor man that drives a jeep of N5 million and
blows it up.Definitely that is not a poor man, even if the suicide
bomber is a poor man, the person who funded him must be a rich man and
these funding comes in very complex and complicated variance.
It could be trade-based; sometimes the money is meant for legitimate things, but it ends up in criminal activity.So
to the extent that we are operating a cash-based economy and monies
move so freely in cash in huge sums, it’s a challenge.’’
Akomaye
also said that the ease of cash flow had also made the nation vulnerable
to drugs trafficking in the sense that drugs could pass through the
country and payments made in cash as no one could easily track such cash
payments.
He said that such vulnerability had also exposed the
Nigerian population to illicit drugs saying that although Nigeria was a
trans-shipment nation, some of the drugs still stayed back and were
consumed locally.
``You also know that we have become a very
significant trans-shipment route for drug trafficking and any country
with that type of situation means that laundering activities will
necessarily take place.
``Because when the drugs pass through here,
it means that there is a syndicate either sitting locally or elsewhere
that is networking with those who are doing the trans-shipment.
``Of
course we cannot run away from the fact that even as we are still
largely a trans-shipment point, some of it remains and when it remains,
it is consumed by Nigerians.’’
Akomaye said that because the
syndicates that ran drugs business could afford to do business with huge
cash, they invested the dirty cash in some other legitimate businesses
where it could no longer be connected to drugs.
``People who are
involved in that trade try to make that business legitimate because the
proceeds from the drugs are invested into businesses that look
legitimate to make sure that it is clean.
``That is the whole process
of laundering; to make dirty money look clean. We are highly vulnerable
and again you know that our border points are so porous; we have a very
large border line
