#PanamaPapers: FG Orders Probe of “Certain” Public Officers Named in Document
The chairman of the Code of Conduct Bureau, CCB, Sam Saba, has confirmed that the federal government has ordered the probe of “certain” public officers whose names were in the leaked #PanamaPapers document, PREMIUM TIMES reports.
The #PanamaPapers are a leaked set of 11.5 million confidential documents created by the Panamanian corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca that provide detailed information on more than 214,000 offshore companies, including the identities of shareholders and directors.
Comprising documents created since the 1970s, the 2.6 terabyte set was given by an anonymous source to the Süddeutsche Zeitung in August 2015 and subsequently to the US-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The papers were distributed to and analyzed by about 400 journalists at 107 media organizations (including PREMIUM TIMES) in more than 80 countries.
“I want to let you know that government has written to us and given us some names based on what they have been reading and hearing regarding that document,” Saba told PREMIUM TIMES.
“I think it (Panama Papers) is going to be helpful because already we have some questions for certain public officers, which I will not be able to disclose at the moment. Until they finish answering those questions, I may not be able to discuss it.
I tried to access the document via the internet, but I was required to subscribe and pay some money, which I didn’t have. That was what stalled our effort at the time. But I later asked my counterpart in the ICPC if he was in the picture and he replied in the negative. He, however, advised me to approach PREMIUM TIMES,” Saba added.
Worthy of note is the fact that the use of shell companies is not illegal and there are individuals and firms who incorporate them for purely legitimate purposes. However, PREMIUM TIMES, in one of its publication said that “some of them, who are public office holders, held the assets in violation of Nigerian law – failing to declare them to the Code of Conduct Bureau”.
Photo Credit: PREMIUM TIMES
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