THE Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, said on Tuesday that he did not need the tinkering of the Act establishing the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to be able to regulate the institution.
Malami said this in reaction to reports that his office was sponsoring a bill seeking additional powers.
In a statement by his media aide, Umar Gwandu, Malami argued that the AGF had indisputable statutory powers to regulate the operations of the commission without recourse to any additional legislation.
He, however, said that it was a global practice in democratic societies that the Legislature might at their discretion, and as deem fit, spearhead the amendment of existing legislation in order to accommodate certain exigencies occasioned by contemporary realities.
The statement, a copy of which was obtained by The Point, said, “The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice does not need the tinkering of the current Economic and Financial Crime (Establishment) Act 2004 to enable him regulate the institution and could therefore not, in any way, seek to sponsor any bill for ‘more powers to control the commission’.
“It is trite to say that by virtue of the extant laws of the land as well as rules and legislation governing the conduct of the governmental operations, the Attorney-General of the Federation has indisputable statutory powers to regulate the operations of the commission without recourse to any additional legislation.”
It added, “Section 43 of the EFCC Act has made it abundantly clear that ‘the Attorney General of the Federation may make rules or regulations with respect to the exercise of any of the duties, functions or powers of the Commission under this Act.’
“For the avoidance of doubt, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice believes in the doctrines of separation of powers as an epitome character of the democratic administration and could not therefore meddle into the affairs of legislature for megalomaniac sake.
“It is a global practice in democratic societies that the legislature may at their discretion and as deem fit, spearhead the amendment of existing legislation in order to accommodate certain exigencies occasioned by contemporary realities and the need to improve performance to achieve best practices without any prompting from external organs of the government.”
“At the moment, the priority of the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice is to see to the effective execution of its statutory mandates of supervising all the parastatals under the Federal Ministry of Justice in a way that makes them function in the best interest of the general public, which constitutional responsibility he is engaged by President Muhammadu Buhari to discharge,” the AGF said.
