The Senate Committee on Anticorruption and Financial Crimes has expressed determination to increase the budgetary allocation of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to effectively carry out its anti-graft obligation.

Chairman Emmanuel Udende said this when he led the committee members on an oversight visit to the EFCC headquarters in Abuja yesterday According to him, the EFCC requires more funding.

Udende said: “When the EFCC chairman (Ola Olukoyede) is telling you that he needs software that will tackle virtual and fraudulent cryptocurrency trading, valued at about N3.4billion, then, you will understand why they need more funding. So, they really, really need a lot of money.

What you can do is that through budgeting processing, you will be able to also increase their budget.” He also said that the EFCC deserved a percentage of its recoveries to assist its operations just like the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) gets a certain percentage of its seizures too.

“Like Customs do, they are entitled to a percentage of whatever they get for the year. And if we do it to EFCC, we will be able to work from the proceeds of crime that they recover,” he said.

Olukoyede had earlier called on the National Assembly to support the agency by increasing its allocation in the 2025 budget by 300 per cent.

He said that this was to enable it to acquire the requisite state-of-the-art technology to fight illicit financial flows and economic sabotage.