…We pay allowances not double salaries— EFCC

BY JOHNBOSCO AGBAKWURU & JOSEPH ERUNKE

ABUJA—THE Senate Committee on Drugs, Narcotics and Financial Crimes has condemned the alleged collection of double salaries by Police personnel in the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.

Chairman of the Committee, Senator Victor Lar also frowned at alleged dominance of Policemen in the commission, insisting that it was the reason behind its poor performance.

Speaking exclusively to Vanguard, while reacting to the alleged collection of double salaries by Police officers within the commission, Senator Lar said that his committee had made efforts to know the number of personnel in the agency to no avail.

He said: “Well it is true (Police Personnel in EFCC collect salaries from the Police and the Commission), we got the complaint and while on oversight, we demanded from the EFCC the nominal roll showing the status of each personnel and the disposition according to state of origin.

“This moment as I am talking to you, we are yet to get the response from the EFCC.”

He said most of the Policemen in the EFCC should be returned to police to create vacancies and then recruit Cadet Officers to decongest the unemployment market in the country.

But the Commission’s Public Relations Officer, Wilson Uwejare said that it was absolutely wrong for anybody to think that EFCC pays salary to its Police personnel, even as he debunked the allegation that the commission is dominated by Police.

He said: “I think the issue of dorminance of Police personnel in EFCC is not true but I will explain. Because of the way EFCC came on board the first set of personnel that set up this Commission were drawn largely from the Nigeria Police and that has created the impression people have that we have dominance of Police in EFCC but it is just not correct.”