Olukoyede Charges Property Developers To Run Background Check On Real Estate Investors
The Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ola Olukoyede has tasked real estate developers on the need to do background checks on real estate investors to ascertain the legitimacy of their sources of income.
He stated this on Wednesday at an event tagged “Policy Dialogue on Critical Issues Affecting Nigeria’s Real Estate Ecosystem,” held in Aso Hall of Abuja Intercontinental Hotel. The event, an initiative of Law Corridor, was a solution-driven conversation that brought together key regulators, public officials, private sector leaders, legal experts and real estate development actors for the evaluation of the systemic failures and fashion policy responses that can position the sector on the paths of transparency and growth.
Speaking of the topic “Tackling Illegal Property Sales, Fake Developers and Unlicenced Agents,” Olukoyede stated that, “By virtue of empirical things we have gathered and some of the things we have seen, statistics and reports, we discover that the issue of money laundering is very rampant among real estate developers and stakeholders in the sector. As a developer, the first thing that must come to your mind is that you have to do KYC (Know Your Customer). Even if the law has not made it mandatory for you to do it, in the interest of your business and for the survival of your business, do it. It doesn’t cost you anything. At the press of a button on the public media space you can get basic information about virtually everybody in Nigeria. Why you don’t do it is because you feel you will scare your potential customers or prospective customers.
” Don’t forget the legal principle of accessory before and after the fact of a crime. So, if somebody steals money and uses it to buy property from you and we trace that money to you, we will recover it from you, because you can’t sit on the proceeds of crime. The moment we establish it and prove it that this money was stolen. We will follow it, trace it, recover it. We will take money back from you. So please do KYC in the interest of your business.”
He emphasized that the EFCC will work in partnership with real estate players who play by the rules and ensure that their businesses grow.
Speaking further, he said, “Don’t let anybody hide under you and do money laundering. We’re going to expose you, we’re going to fish you out. Because we are getting to a stage in Nigeria where all of us will have to synergize and collaborate. The government will play its part, private sector players will play their own part and for the country to move forward. I want to see you succeed, but have to do the right thing. You have access to the EFCC, our doors are open. Rest assured that we are not looking for your business to go under. Our job is to make you succeed. That’s my work, because when you succeed, you employ more people, and more Nigerians will get jobs to sustain themselves and the propensity for them to commit financial crime will be reduced.”
In his contribution, the director, Special Unit against Money Laundering, SCUML, of the EFCC, Harry Erin, while advising the public to ensure that the transactions they make go through financial institutions to curb money laundering, regretted the absence of proper regulation in the real estate sector, especially with regards to estate agents.
Speaking on “Investment Compliance and Anti-money Laundering in the Real Estate,” Director General of Bureau of Public Procurement, BPP, Adebowale Adedokun also called on real estate developers to seek to determine investors’ sources of funds by going beyond KYC to ascertain Proof of Fund.
