The Secretary of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ola Olukoyede has charged auctioneers handling the disposal of 244 vehicles forfeited to the Federal Government by illegal oil dealers, to be fair, open and accessible to every interested member of the public.
He gave the charge on Friday, December 20, 2019 in Port Harcourt, Rivers State while inspecting all the eleven (11) bidding slots allocated to shortlisted auctioneers for the exercise. According to him, transparency and equal opportunity of bidding are the hallmarks of every auction and the licensed operators must abide by the rules. “Let everyone interested in any of the vehicles be given access to them. The bidding must be open and free. There must be no hindrance of any kind”, he said.
Olukoyede later went round all the bidding boards placed strategically at the open ground of the Police Officers Wives Association, POWA, in the old Government Reservation Area, G.R.A, Port Harcourt where the bidding is holding and inspected vehicles displayed on each board. He cautioned auctioneers against hiding any of the vehicles allocated to them.
The auction exercise commenced Friday in Port Harcourt, with the unveiling of the eleven shortlisted auctioneers by the EFCC. The vehicles being publicly auctioned were forfeited to the government through the ruling of a Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. The forfeiture order was granted by Justice I. M Sani on July 5, 2019.
The auction of the vehicles is being conducted by the EFCC in conjunction with the Deputy Chief Registrar of the Federal High Court and the Department of Petroleum Resources.