SAN FRANCISCO, November 21, (THEWILL) – The Federal Government has revealed that it has reached an agreement with Switzerland over the repatriation of $321 million looted from Nigeria by next month.
This was revealed by the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Justice Reforms, Mrs Juliet Ibekaku, at the Conversation on Anti-corruption Campaign organised by the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) in Abuja.
She said not having an agreement or Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with foreign countries for the return of looted money before now delayed the process of discussion and recovery of looted funds.
Ibekaku added that the Federal Government had also opened up discussions with the U.S. government for the return of the money that were stashed in that country.
She said the money recovery mission was hinged on the Open Government Partnership Initiative which was committed to four thematic areas: Transparency, Anti-corruption, Access to information, Citizen engagement and Empowerment.
“So far, we have recovered part of the Malabu fund held by the UK courts,” she revealed.
“We are also working to finalise the process for the return of $321million and by December, we are going to sign the MoU for the return of the money held in Switzerland.
“I am happy to also note here that some Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) working in the area of asset recovery were involved in the negotiation of the MoU and will be involved in monitoring the assets.
“This is to ensure that the returned funds are managed in a transparent manner as other recovery plans continue in countries like UK, Island of Jersey and France.”
She said the government had set up one asset recovery account because the President has directed that all the law enforcement agencies put all recovered money in the central account.
Ibekaku said that the President also directed that asset recovery should now be ploughed into the budget to fund part of it, starting from 2017 saying all the money being recovered by anti-corruption agencies would go into funding part of the budget.
