The Centre for Anti-corruption and Open Leadership, CACOL has called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC to expedite its investigations on the $20M bribery scam involving former officials of the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA with the ultimate goal of bringing the culprits to book.
Mr. Debo Adeniran, the Executive Chairman of the Centre said “it is embarrassing and unacceptable that till date, the $20M bribery scam; an international case has not been seen to logical conclusions where culpability of suspects or otherwise would have been established and with culprits facing the full wrath of the law.”
“This is a case that involved a Swiss company, Dredging International Services (Cyprus) Ltd that has already being found guilty in Switzerland and fined 1 million Swiss Francs accordingly since 2012!”
“What could be taking the EFCC, other anti-corruption agencies and the Federal Government so long to identify the former NPA officials that received the bribe and bring them to justice just like it has been done in Switzerland? The fact that the Swiss government had sent its report on the bribery scam which indicted the NPA officials to the FG since 2012 makes the situation curious as far as logic is concerned. The case mocks Nigeria’s anti-corruption drive within the comity nations and something must be by the authorities.”
“Again, we hear from media reports that the indicted companies are still bidding for contracts at the NPA while the $20M bribery scam remain judiciously unresolved. We note that such moves indicate that the case has been ‘resolved’ and business can continue as usual.”
“As such, we are therefore calling on the EFCC and other relevant agencies to move beyond ‘we are investigating’ to practical, expeditious and lawful means to bring those behind the bribery scam to justice no matter how highly placed they are in the society. Nigeria cannot continue to carry an image created by only a few persons via their incurable greed, lust for lucre and self-aggrandizement.” Adeniran concluded
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