Some of the ships seized by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission have begun to sink in waters across the country, while many of those temporarily and permanently forfeited by suspected corrupt persons are being damaged due to lack of maintenance, The PUNCH has reliably learnt.

Sources in the know of the development at the House of Representatives told our correspondent that the Nigerian Navy, which was mandated to oversee the seized, recovered or forfeited assets, had no budgetary provision to maintain them, leaving them damaged and submerged eventually.

According to the lawmakers, most of the vessels are in Lagos State and they are the worst hit by the abandonment.

The House of Representatives Ad Hoc Committee on Assessment and Status of All Recovered Loots Movable and Immovable Assets from 2002 to 2020 by Agencies of the Federal Government of Nigeria for Effective, Efficient Management and Utilisation had recently embarked on oversight visits to the locations of such assets for an on-the-sight assessment.

Some members of the committee, who spoke to our correspondent on the condition of anonymity as the investigation was still ongoing, expressed their displeasure at what they found out during the tour.

A member said, “There are some of these assets that are still being managed by third parties. But a lot of them are just totally sealed up. Like business premises, they allow the people operating on the premises to continue, while they pay (rent) into the Recovery Account…they are paying rent to the EFCC. But for the ones that are not like that, they are sealed up and those ones are depreciating.

“Now, let me tell you the worst case and where you will feel bad about depreciation (of recovered/seized assets): houses depreciate but not as bad as the vessels in the waters. Most of the ships that were supposedly seized, a number of them sunk – three or four of them have submerged because nobody can take care of them.

“In fact, most of the ones in the Lagos waters have badly depreciated…they are like just holding the shell when the snail is dead. That is what has happened to most of the vessels. About 10 per cent have been submerged, while the other ones are just in a terrible state that they cannot attract much value again.”

When asked for the number of ships and vessels on the waters across the country, the lawmaker disclosed that over 30 were in Port Harcourt, about 10 in Warri, and about 10 in Bayelsa, adding, “They (Navy) have quite a lot and they are really in a bad shape.”

The source noted that while the “ones with the most value are in Port Harcourt,” they are all in the custody of the Nigerian Navy.

“Even though they were forfeited to the EFCC, the EFCC cannot protect them; it is the Navy that is protecting them,” he said.

The lawmaker noted that ships that were supposed to be powered regularly had been abandoned for close to seven years “and because of that, they have started to take in water.”

“I initially doubted the submerging story. We went to the water. I actually did not believe that they were submerged. But we actually saw ships inside the water,” the lawmaker added.


Another member of the committee was asked how the panel felt about recovered assets wasting away when the Federal Government was crying about revenue shortage and had embarked on a borrowing spree locally and internationally.

The lawmaker said, “The problem is that there is a wide gap between forfeiture and sale (auction). Most of the ships and vessels were forfeited over five years ago; the minimum is two years ago. And they are all still there. And these are assets that cannot be abandoned for long; they are depreciating assets.

Source;
https://punchng.com/90-ships-seized-by-efcc-rot-away-in-lagos-others/

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