Non-governmental organizations, NGOs across the country have been asked to collaborate with the Special Control Unit against Money Laundering (SCUML) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC in the fight against corruption and economic crimes in Nigeria.
The Head SCUML, Angela Nworgu made the call in Abuja on Tuesday, 25th September, 2012, at a meeting with a coalition of NGOs aimed at achieving effective supervision, regulation and monitoring of the sector.
The SCUML boss noted that NGOs are crucial to nation building and urged them to be ethical and transparent in all their activities.
She urged them to regularly send in their statutory report to the unit, while also stressing the preparedness of her agency to answer any question or make clarifications relating to compliance with the anti money laundering regulations.
“We now go from door to door to educate Designated Non Financial Institutions, whoever calls on us; we are ready to go to them. Our officials are out in Port-Harcourt and Enugu to sensitize people on what they need to do. We are just starting and hopefully we would get to the grassroots,” Nworgu said.
Some of the participants who spoke, commended the strategy of bringing the NGOs together and pledged their readiness to partner with the Commission in its fight against corruption.
The Director of Center for social Justice, Mr. Eze Onyekwere says, “We want to support the government in the fight against corruption and money laundering but we don’t have the capacity due to fear of being blackmailed.”
In all, 13 NGOs were represented at the meeting.
SCUML was established in 2005 as a special unit to fight Money Laundering as spelt out in the Money Laundering (Prohibition) ML(P) Act 0f 2004 ( Now 2011).
Although legally domiciled in the Ministry of Trade and Investment, SCUML works closely with the EFCC operationally.
