BEVERLY HILLS, May 29, (THEWILL) – The President Muhammadu Buhari administration has expressed its determination to bring persons accused of corruption to justice, as it insisted that funds stolen from the public treasury in the past few years must be accounted for by those who committed the act.
The Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo stated this on Monday in a nationwide broadcast in commemoration of Democracy Day and the second anniversary of the Buhari government.
He maintained that funds appropriated to build roads, railway lines, power plants, and to equip the military, that have been stolen or diverted into private pockets, must be retrieved and the culprits brought to justice.
According to him, “We believe that the looting of public resources that took place in the past few years has to be accounted for.
“Many have said that the process is slow, and that is true. Corruption has fought back with tremendous resources and our system of administration of justice has been quite slow.
“But the good news for justice is that our law does not recognize a time bar for the prosecution of corruption and other crimes, and we will not relent in our efforts to apprehend and bring corruption suspects to justice.”
The Acting President stated that the government had also started re-equipping the prosecution teams, and that part of the expected judicial reforms was to dedicate some specific courts to the trial of corruption cases.
He held that the All Progressives Congress-led Federal Government was also institutionalizing safeguards and deterrents in the process.
In the words of Osinbajo, “we have expanded the coverage of the Treasury Single Account (TSA).”
“We have introduced more efficient accounting and budgeting systems across the Federal Government. We have also launched an extremely successful Whistleblower Policy.”
“The Efficiency Unit of the Federal Ministry of Finance has succeeded in plugging leakages amounting to billions of naira, over the last two years.”
“We have ended expensive and much-abused fertilizer and petrol subsidy regimes.”
“We have taken very seriously our promise to save and invest for the future, even against the backdrop of our revenue challenges.”
“We have in the last two years added 500 million dollars to our Sovereign Wealth Fund and 87 million dollars to the Excess Crude Account.”
“This is the very opposite of the situation before now, when rising oil prices failed to translate to rising levels of savings and investment.’’
