The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, has disclosed that a portion of the commission’s recovered funds was allocated to support the Nigeria Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) and the Nigerian Consumer Credit Corporation (CREDICORP).
Olukoyede made the disclosure during a recent interview, stating that the EFCC recovered “several hundred billions of naira” in the past year, some of which were redirected to fund national development initiatives.
“We also made some reasonable, substantial monetary recovery. Several hundreds of billions of naira, which has positively impacted the economy. And I’ll tell you two ways. You must have heard that part of our recovery we did last year was appropriated to the NELFUND. In fact, it is money used for taking off to set up that programme. Now over 200,000 students have benefited from the programme. It’s a major plus,” Olukoyede said.
He also revealed that ₦50 billion from recovered assets was pumped into CREDICORP to improve credit access for Nigerians.
He added, “Civil servants can easily go in and obtain credits at probably one single-digit interest rate. ₦50 billion was part of our recovery asset, which we used for setting it as well.”
Olukoyede noted the challenges faced by civil servants in a cash-based economy and argued that access to credit could reduce the incentive for corruption.
“One of the biggest problems in Nigeria is that people work for many years and still cannot afford a basic standard of living. If you work 10 years as a civil servant and still can’t afford a two-bedroom flat because everything is cash-based, that’s a problem,” he said.
He said that making credit available would ease people’s financial burdens and lessen the chance of corrupt behaviour.
“It will help us. If you work for five years, you’ll be able to have access to credit and buy three-bedroom bungalows and repay it for the next ten years. We would pay in such a way that there’s not so much negative impact on your income. Your propensity to steal will reduce. So, that is part of being part of our economy.”
