ABUJA—President Goodluck
Jonathan, his Vice, Namadi Sambo
and the state governors may soon be
compelled to publish their bank
accounts, including foreign bank
accounts.
This follows a three-pronged bill
which passed second reading,
yesterday, on the floor of the House of
Representatives.
The bill also allows the President, his
vice, state governors and indeed all
other public office holders to keep
foreign bank accounts.
One of the bills comes with the title,
“A Bill for an Act to Amend the Code
of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act,
2004, so as to make the leave of the
bureau necessary for a public officer
to maintain or operate a bank
account outside Nigeria.”
Other bills
Others are: A Bill for an Act to Amend
the Code of Conduct Bureau and
Tribunal Act by deleting proviso to
Section 3, deleting section 18(1) and
enacting and Amended Section 18(2)
and a Bill for an Act to Amend the
Conduct of Bureau Tribunal Act to
make accessible Assets and
Liabilities declared by Public Office
Holders.”
Sponsors of the bills are Hons.
Bamidele Faparusi (APC-Ekiti),
Oluchi Ibeji(PDP-Abia) and
Emmanuel Jime (PDP-Benue).
While presenting his Bill, Hon.
Faparusi argued that: “The purpose of
the law is to discourage the launder of
money and fraud by public officers.
But it is public knowledge that
nobody would use his bank account
to launder money, instead proxies
and cronies have become ready
instruments for such purposes”.
He stated that: “The instant law, as it
is today, does not contemplate this
development and to tackle it, there is
need to make for such public officer,
who hitherto maintains and operates
a foreign account and has cause to
hold same, to get leave of the Bureau
to continue to use such accounts.
This would be an improvement from
the practice of requiring a public
office holder to close any foreign
account so held by reason of the
office now occupied.”
More submissions
He further submitted that “this
development would give the Bureau
some teeth to bite, based on the fact
that it would be able to prosecute any
defaulter and seek the imposition of
sanctions in line with section 23 of
the Act relying on the said public
office holder’s decline to make proper
declaration to the Bureau”.
Also highlighting the synopsis of his
Bill in his lead debate on his Bill,
which seeks to compel public office
holders to declare their assets, Hon.
Jime said that the said assets be
made public in two weeks.
He opined that the development will
discourage theft, promote
transparency and tame financial
corruption in public offices.
“The Principal aim of asset
declaration/disclosure by public
officials is tailored towards
combating corruption; enhancing and
building public confidence and
legitimacy in government processes;
and engineering transparency in its
dealings, in the eyes of the public and
the international community at large”,
he stated.
Jime further stated that the intention
of the Bill was to amend section 3(c)
of the Code of Conduct Act, 2004
to :Retain and make accessible to
any Nigerian citizen within 14 days,
the assets and liabilities declared by
any serving or past public office
holder, via any medium as he or she
may wish upon agreement with the
Bureau and to bear the charges
thereof”.
He added that: “the importance of
making more accessible assets and
liabilities of public office holders to
make governance more open has
found expression in many countries
of the world, a better example
through public disclosure of assets as
exemplified in Latin American
countries like Argentina, Brazil, Chile
etc”.
The 3-legged Bill which received
unanimous endorsement of the
members when put to vote by
Speaker Aminu Tambuwal was later
referred to Committees on Anti-
corruption, Ethics and Values for a
Public Hearing.
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/11/law-empowering-president-govs-others-operate-foreign-accounts-coming/

I'm Waiting!

If d bill does not go down well with gej, expect it to remain on his desk, gather dusts and be begging for presidential assent like other 36 bills sent to d president for assent have been doing.