CISLAC, Others Want FG To Act On Pandora Papers

The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), the National Chapter of Transparency International (TI) in Nigeria, and Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ) have called on civil society organizations to track and document the Pandora reports to ensure the exposures do not go the way of the 2017 and 2016 Paradise and Panama Papers.

The groups made the assertion in a statement made available to  GreenWhiteGreen GWG.

The groups also called on the Federal Government to consider policy reforms and institutional strengthening necessary to curb the abuse of financial systems and ease the prosecution of violators.

In that light, the groups called on the Federal Government to consider the following:

•        Strengthen the Code of Conduct Bureau by digitizing the assets declaration processes, documentation and verification, and the prosecution of violators. As of now, the asset declaration administration in Nigeria is dysfunctional and a major enabler for corruption. The federal government must equally work with the National Assembly to remove all the obstacles to public access to asset declarations of every eligible public officers.

•        The Company and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) 2020 provides for the setting up of a Beneficial Ownership (BO) register. We call on the government to fully implement this so that beneficial owners of companies in Nigeria can be identified. This will prevent the diversion of public funds through procurement corruption in the first place. The Nigerian government must “live the talk” by ensuring the beneficial ownership data is publicly accessible and must show leadership by acting on them. So far, the lack of action on financial data leaks proves the opposite.

•        On its part, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) needs to ensure that financial institutions fully carry out Know Your Customer (KYC), Customer Due Diligence (CDD) as well as Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) as required by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Inter-Governmental Action Against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA), and other international financial compliance guidelines. Effective compliance with these guidelines and measures will curb the current abuse and indiscretion among politically exposed persons and their collaborators.

•        The CBN, Anti-graft agencies, the Ministry of Justice, and the Foreign Affairs work in synergy and engage their international counterparts to ensure that global enablers/middlemen like lawyers, notaries, accountants who help facilitate money laundering and tax evasion are blacklisted, deregistered, or held to account under the several national laws, policies and international frameworks to which Nigeria is a signatory. There is enough open data available exposing PEPs, military leaders, senior public servants, and others to own lavish properties all around the world. No significant international cooperation with many key jurisdictions takes place at the moment.

•        The Federal Government should reopen the Voluntary Asset and Income Disclosure Scheme (VAIDS) and the Voluntary Offshore Assets Regularization Scheme (VOARS) to enable Nigerians with undisclosed (offshore) assets to declare them and pay taxes where they are liable.

•        The National Assembly should ensure that it continues to play its constitutionally mandated oversight functions on the relevant government agencies to ensure that they carry out their mandate.

•        With the electioneering period approaching, INEC, CBN, the NFIU, and other relevant agencies must ensure that political parties conform to political party financing regulations and prevent the use of “dirty money” in Nigeria’s politics.

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