Abacha’s recovered loots are being disbursed to the poor – FG
The Special Adviser to the President on Social Investments, Mrs Maryam Uwais, has said that the Federal Government has been channeling the recovered funds from Abacha’s loot to the poor and vulnerable Nigerians.
Delivering an address on Monday at the training on illicit funds, the Presidential aide said from August 2018 to the October payment cycle, the total amount disbursed from the Abacha loot was $76,538,530 and $27,099,028 from the IDA credit.
She said the decision to distribute the Abacha loot and the IDA funds to poor and vulnerable Nigerians, who were mined from a National Social Register, collated by the National Social Safety Net Coordinating Office, was reached by the Swiss government, the World Bank and the Federal Government.
“In December 2014, a Swiss judge gave a forfeiture order to the effect that the money ($322.5m) recovered from the family of late General Abacha would be returned to Nigeria, one of the conditions being that the World Bank would be involved in monitoring disbursements.
“Presumably, this was as a consequence to the opaqueness that surrounded the application of recovered funds,” Uwais said. Uwais listed key achievements of the Cash Transfer Programme funded with the Abacha loot and IDA loan facility to include enrolment and payment of 620,947 beneficiaries across 29 states.
