UK, group to monitor $322 million Abacha loot spending

macfranc007 September 20, 2018 Nigeria News today & Breaking news ▷ Read Naija news 24/7 Nnenna Ibeh

A UK-based civil society organisation said it had begun the monitoring of the Federal Government’s disbursement of the $322.5m General Sani Abacha loot recovered from Switzerland.

African Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) on Wednesday, September 19, said it was working with six other partners with the support of a United Kingdom agency, UK Aid Direct, to ensure that the loot was spent on the Conditional Cash Transfer Programme across Nigerian states as promised by the federal government.

ANEEJ's executive director, David Ugolor, since the Nigerian government had pledged to distribute the loot on a conditional cash transfer programme, there was a need for the civil society to ensure the transparent utilisation of looted assets in the country.

Ugolor said: “In December 2017, the Swiss government repatriated funds stolen from Nigeria by the late Gen. Sani Abacha. A total of $322.5 million was repatriated comprising $321 million and $1.5 million interest.

“The federal government of Nigeria announced to Nigerians that the $322.5 million would be used to support the poorest of the poor through the Conditional Cash Transfer Programme.

The cash transfer programme has been on since 2017 with funding from the national budget and a loan facility from the World Bank. The disbursement of the $322.5 million Abacha loot in the programme is scheduled to start from October 2018.

“As part of the implementation of the Monitoring of Recovered Assets in Nigeria through the Transparency and Accountability Project with support from UKAID, we are working with six partners to monitor the use of the Abacha loot in the Conditional Cash Transfer Programme across states that are implementing the programme.”

"The fact that we were part of the MoU between Switzerland and Nigeria for the repatriation of this tranche of the Abacha loot," Ugolor said.

Meanwhile, NAIJ.com previously reported that the former minister Kemi Adeosun and the governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, affirmed on Sunday, April 22, that the country’s positive growth outlook would be sustained.

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The minister and the CBN Governor gave this assurance at a joint press briefing at the end of the 2018 International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Spring Meeting in Washington DC, United States.

Adeosun said the present growth outlook contrasted with the outlook in 2015, and that inflation rate was slowing down while the foreign reserves were rising.

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