Reps Move To Legalise Foreign Accounts For President, Governors, Others

In a bid to stop the rising involvement of public office holders in corrupt activities, the House of Representatives yesterday began three amendments to the Code of Conduct Bureau Act to, among other things, make it mandatory for presidents, vice presidents, governors and other public office holders to obtain the permission of the bureau before operating foreign bank accounts.
It also seeks to expunge the provision in the Act that allows the president to amend the Act through an executive order, remove the power of the president to exempt some people from sanction by the bureau and provide for public access to declared assets.
One of the bill entitled “A Bill for an Act to Amend the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act, 2004”, sponsored by Hon Bamidele Faparunsi (APC, Ekiti), seeks to allow public office holders operate foreign accounts since the present law that criminalises the act is not being enforced.
He said: “The law was made to discourage the laundering 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.
“The extant 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,” he said, noting that the amendment would give the bureau more power to bite when necessary.
The second bill for an Act to amend the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act seeks to remove the power of the president to restrict the bureau from taking action against certain public officers and to also remove the power of the president to make changes to the Act as “he deems necessary”. The bill was sponsored by Hon Udo Ibeji (PDP, Abia).
Lastly, the bill for an “Act to amend the Conduct of Conduct Bureau Tribunal Act to make accessible Assets and Liabilities declared by Public Office Holders”, sponsored by Hon Emmanuel Jime (PDP, Benue).
In his lead debate on his bill, which seeks to make assets of public officers open to the citizenry, Jime argued that the said assets be made public in two weeks to encourage trust and promote transparency in governance.

- Leadership

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