Reps endorse financial intelligence centre for Nigeria
ABUJA-THE House of Representatives, Wednesday, passed a bill for the establishment of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Center in Nigeria.
Entitled “a bill for an act to establish the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Centre as the central body in Nigeria responsible for receiving, requesting, analyzing and disseminating financial intelligence reports and other information to law enforcement, security and intelligence agencies and other relevant authorities and for other related matters” was approved in a committee of the whole after a clause by clause consideration presided over by the deputy speaker, Emeka Ihedioha.
The report of the committee on drugs, narcotics and financial crimes on the bill was presented by the chairman of the House committee on rules and business, Rep Albert Sam-Tsokwa, PDP, Taraba on behalf of the committee.
Vanguard recalls that the report on the bill was laid on the floor of the House on May 20, 2014 by the chairman of the committee on drugs, narcotics and financial crimes, Rep . Jagaba Adams Jagaba.
Presenting the report for consideration, Sam-Tsokwa had noted that the passage of the bill has become imperative to launch Nigeria into the comity of nation’s complying with the international efforts to contain money laundering.
When signed into law, the national agency will be responsible for the receipt of information from financial institutions and designated non-financial institutions, analysis of the financial information for the purpose of turning this information into financial intelligence and dissemination of the financial intelligence to all law enforcement agencies.
The bill seeks to make the NFIU a fully autonomous body that will operate independently without any interference in financial intelligence gathering.
The legislation is also designed to provide a sustainable and credible legal framework for the Financial Intelligence Center-FIC, Nigeria. The Bill seeks to provide the FIC with operational independence and autonomy, and greater ability to provide financial intelligence to all relevant competent authorities in order to strengthen anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) measures.
It would be recalled that the third reading and passage of the Bill was marred in controversy and had to be referred to committee on drugs, narcotics and financial crimes for fine tuning.
Chairman of the committee, Rep Jagaba Adams Jagaba ,PDP, Kaduna, described the passage of the bill as another show of the commitment of the present House leadership in the war against money laundering, terrorism and corruption in Nigeria.
He commended his colleagues for their support, even as he spoke of the need for credible and competent persons to be appointed to head the Center.
Their Senate counterpart had earlier passed the bill and with this development in the House, a conference committee will be raised to harmonise the different version for onward transmission to the president for his approval.
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