David Mark, former Senate President
Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has requested Sam Saba, Chairman, Code of Conduct Bureau to use your good offices and leadership to urgently investigate current and immediate past high-ranking public officers named in the Panama Papers and others that are maintaining and operating or have maintained and operated foreign accounts in other safe havens and secrecy jurisdictions, and to where appropriate refer such officers to the Code of Conduct Tribunal for prosecution.
According to SERAP some of the persons named in the Panama Papers leak include Nigeria’s senate president, Bukola Saraki; former senate president, David Mark and imprisoned former governor of Delta state, James Ibori.
Urging CCB to quickly act, SERAP noted that it would be grateful if the Bureau could begin to take these steps within 14 days of the receipt and/or publication of this letter. “If we have not heard from you by then as to the steps the Bureau is taking to address the concerns raised in this letter, the Registered Trustees of SERAP shall take all appropriate legal actions to compel the Bureau to effectively discharge its constitutional and statutory mandates in this instance.”
In a letter dated 8 April 2016 and signed by SERAP executive director Adetokunbo Mumuni, the organisation said: “SERAP believes that the Panama Papers have shown the extent to which public officers in the country are concealing their stolen wealth in safe havens and secrecy jurisdictions, contrary to the Code of Conduct for Public Officers which prohibits public officers from maintaining and operating foreign accounts.”
“SERAP hopes that the Code of Conduct Bureau will learn from the lessons of the Panama Papers to combat the abuse of the asset declaration requirements and not wait for further international disclosures that may implicate even more public officers in corruption and …Read More
Source:: PM Newspaper
