The Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Prof Bolaji Owasanoye (SAN), has said that real estate is often used as cover for money laundering and Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs).
Owasanoye spoke at a public hearing on real estate organized by the House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee on Investigation of Operations of Real Estate Developers in FCT, Abuja.
Spokesperson of the ICPC, Mrs. Azuka Ogugua, who stated this in a statement titled, ‘Real Estate used for Money Laundering, IFFs – ICPC Chairman,’ said Owasanoye fingered public officers in the infamous act, saying that they use real estate developers as conduits for IFFs.
The ICPC boss said, “Corruption in real estate aids illicit financial flows. The real estate sector is globally recognized as attractive to IFFs largely because it is informal, unregulated and thus open to abuse, shell-companies, use of intermediaries and third parties to acquire high value real estate with proceeds of crime and/or illicit funds.”
“Corrupt public officers use real estate investment as vehicle for hiding ill-gotten wealth and money laundering. Public officers acquire estates in pseudo names to conceal illegal origin of funds.
“This is made possible by the absence of proper documentation and registration of titles to lands and estates in the country and non-enforcement of beneficial ownership standards.
“The Commission has a case in which we recovered 241 houses from a public officer and another one with 60 buildings on a large expanse of land.”
Owasanoye told the Committee that the Commission has recovered monies and properties for the government through efforts to sanitise the real estate sector.
He said, “ICPC continued with an exercise started by the defunct SPIP and concluded it from which recovery of a total sum of N53,968,158,974.64 was made.
“The figure comprises of N858,938,681,681.06 fully recovered and paid into FMBN account; N1,357,490,846.28 post-dated cheque for October 2021 and a notarized agreement to pay the sum of N51,751,729,447.30) to the FMBN”.
Owasanoye further dwelled on the need for strict government regulation of the sector, noting that irregularities bordering on forgery and cloning of land documents, double/multiple land allocations, allocations of lands without the Minister’s approval, and revocation of land titles without due process have become rampant.
He said, “We observed that even the real estate developers were not spared of problems in the sector arising from high cost of home acquisition, unstable capital market, currency volatility, increased rural-to-urban migration, ineffective property protection laws, perceived multiple taxation and poor building quality.”
