Since President Muhammadu Buhari assumed power in May last year, he has made the fight against corruption his main priority and several former government officials have been arrested and now face trial. Already, several plush properties have been confiscated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), especially from former military officials who embezzled defence funds.
Many of these houses in Abuja and Lagos, are worth millions of naira and have been sealed by the EFCC as the court cases proceed. Ms Adeosun has added that the federal government plans to relocate some of its ministries, agencies and departments into some of these choice properties recovered from looters.
According to Ms Adeosun, the move to relocate the agencies was to reduce waste since the properties were empty. She pointed this out in Abuja yesterday while briefing journalists after the monthly Steering Committee of the Efficiency Unit meeting.
Ms Adeosun said: “The issuance of price guidelines and initiatives for reducing expenditure on rent on office and residential buildings will be the primary focus areas of the efficiency unit in coming months. You may want to know that the average annual expenditure on rent for a three year period of 2012 to 2014 was N3.55bn."
She added that to achieve that, the government is already looking at using properties that were forfeited from recoveries and moving some of its agencies to occupy them rather than paying rent. At least three former Nigerian Air Force heads have had properties seized from them in recent months as the EFCC adjudged them to have been bought with looted funds.
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