- About N6 billion has been disbursed from the $322.5m recovered from Late Sani Abacha
- A group monitoring the spending confirmed the figure
- The government said it was working to make sure the funds go round the country
The Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) has said that more than N6 billion has been disbursed from the $322.5m recovered from late former head of state, Sani Abacha.
Daily Trust reports that this was revealed by Rev. David Ugolor at the pre-OGP summit of the CSO with stakeholders in Abuja.
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Ugolor said ANEEJ has been “monitoring the disbursements through its Monitoring the Use of Recovered Assets in Nigeria through Transparency and Accountability (MANTRA) project.”
He confirmed that the beneficiaries were paid the amount in December 2018 through the federal government’s cash transfer which has been going on in some states of the federation.
Maryam Uwais who is the special adviser to the president for social protection said an office has been set up to ensure that the whole country receives the fund.
She said the country has opened discussions with the World Poverty Data Lab to review the poverty assessment with the current data.
She said: “They want to come back to Nigeria because the data they used was 2012/2013 and the indicators for them was clearly different from what we consider in Nigeria.”
Meanwhile, the alleged disbursement by the federal government of the $321million General Sani Abacha’s loot, repatriated from Switzerland, without clearance from the National Assembly is still causing ripples in government circles.
According to The Guardian, while the Senate insists that is unaware of any budgetary proposal from the executive regarding the sharing of the money, the House of Representatives expressed surprise over claims that the presidency ordered the distribution of the monies to indigent Nigerians prior to the 2019 elections.
But the presidency insists that the implementation of the disbursement mainstreamed in the federal government’s Social Investment Programme (SIP) and meant to address abject poverty commenced since August last year, after the programme met the back-end requirement of the World Bank to ensure accountability and transparency of the distribution.
However, according to the Senate appropriation committee led by Senator Danjuma Goje, such expenditure was never part of the 2018 budget.
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