Some foreign embassies engage 3rd parties invoicing in dollars — EFCC

He said it was against the law for foreign missions based in Nigeria to transact in foreign currencies, hence, the commission’s mandate on using the naira in financial businesses.

“We recognise as a commission that foreign missions are representatives of their home countries, enjoy certain diplomatic privileges by international law. The commission is not a place to want to interfere with some of the privileges that they enjoy under international law,” he said.

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“It is not within the remit of the EFCC to either ban or direct foreign missions in the manner or the way they handle their finances.

“What happened is that the commission over time, observed that a number of the foreign missions by the manner in which they handled consular services, a number of them have engaged third parties to carry out consular services on their behalf and those third parties have been invoicing in dollars.

“Some even went to the ridiculous extent of determining the exchange rate or the naira in the course of the transaction with Nigerians and some foreign nationals based in Nigeria.

“We thought that that practice conflicted with extant laws and regulations in Nigeria, and we felt compelled to bring this practice to the knowledge of the missions through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”