THE Economic and Financial Crimes Commission plans to push for the creation of special courts for corruption cases, legislation on civil asset forfeiture, whistleblower and witness protection within the next five years.

This was contained in the EFCC Strategic Plan 2021-2025 presented to stakeholders a few days ago and obtained by our correspondent in Abuja, on Friday.

The plan comprised five strategic objectives: To increase public engagement in the fight against economic and financial crimes; improve systems and processes for the prevention of economic and financial crimes; improve intelligence-driven investigation, prosecution, and assets recovery and management.

Others are improved law enforcement coordination and collaboration with relevant stakeholders, and enhance institutional capacity and human capital development.

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The anti-graft agency said the strategies, if implemented faithfully, would enhance systems and processes for investigation, prosecution, and witness protection while strengthening forensics services and capacity.

 The plan reads partly, “The third strategic objective is on improvement of the enforcement activities of the commission. This will be achieved through intelligence-driven investigation, prosecution and assets recovery and management.

“Our investigation and prosecution activities will be strengthened through continuous improvement of our systems and procedures for intelligence gathering, processing and dissemination to relevant departments/sections.

‘’We will continue to advocate for legislation on whistleblower, witness protection and special courts. Technical capacity will be strengthened through capacity development in the use of forensic services to support investigation and prosecution.”

The strategy also includes short term priorities which must be achieved within the first 12 months-communication of the plan to all staff, budget, approval and implementation of priorities, departmental work plan and training needs assessment.

Under the plan, the “commission will collate the number of economic and financial crimes cases reported by the public; record its operations and the number of outreach programmes, while targeting +10 per cent annually.”