Dangote opens up on EFCC visit, promises to help in investigation

The Dangote Group has opened up on the recent visit of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) operatives to its office in Lagos.

The commission’s officials during the week visited the Dangote Group’s corporate headquarters in Lagos over details of foreign exchange allocated to the company under the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele’s watch.

The anti-graft agency is investigating 51 other companies on the matter.

In a statement signed on Saturday by its Chairman, Aliko Dangote, the company affirmed its readiness to cooperate with the EFCC in its investigation into the matter.

The statement read: “On 6 December 2023, we received a letter requesting details of all the foreign exchange allocated to our company by the Central Bank of Nigeria from 2014 to the present. We understand similar letters were sent to 51 other Groups of companies requesting for same information spanning the same period.

READ ALSO: EFCC summons Dangote officials to Abuja over forex scandal probe

“We responded to the EFCC to acknowledge receipt of the letter whilst seeking clarification on the subsidiaries or companies within the Group that they required information on. We also requested additional time to compile and properly present the extensive documentation spanning ten years.

“However, the EFCC did not provide the clarification sought and also did not honour our request for an extension and insisted on receiving the complete set of documents within the limited timeframe. Despite this constraint, we assured the EFCC of our commitment to providing the information and pledged to share documents in batches as we complete the compilation.

“On 4 January 2024, our team delivered the first batch of documents to the EFCC. However, officers of the EFCC did not accept the documents, insisting on visiting our offices to collect the same set of documents directly.

“Whilst our representatives were still at the EFCC’s office to deliver the documents, a team of their officers proceeded to visit our offices to demand the same documents in a manner that appeared designed to cause us unwarranted embarrassment. Worthy of note is the fact that the officials did not take any documents or files from our Head office during their visit as these were already in their office.

“We must emphasize that, to our knowledge, no accusations of wrongdoing have been made against any company within our Group. At present, we are only responding to a request for information to assist the EFCC with their ongoing investigation.”

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