The Federal Government has submitted five proposals to the government of Switzerland detailing how it will spend the $132million Abacha loot if returned. Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami told the Nation that the Federal government was trying to meet the terms of Switzerland before the money is returned.
“We got a request from Switzerland that we should provide a list of projects that we will spend the $321million on. The government has done its homework and submitted five proposals that have bearing with social benefit projects. Some of the projects have been captured in this year’s budget. They will impact on all Nigerians. They wrote back to us on the fact that they will want the World Bank to be directly involved in the monitoring of the projects with a caveat that we have to pay monitoring fees. We have not come to terms with paying monitoring fees for all the projects. We have not taken any decision to pay the bills for all the projects or to restrict the payment to two of the projects. We are already collaborating with World Bank on three projects which will accelerate the nation’s development.”he said
The Federal government in March last year signed an agreement with Switzerland government on the return of the $321million. The agreement titled:
“Letter of Intent on the restitution of illegally-acquired assets forfeited in Switzerland,” was signed by Malami, and the Swiss Head of Foreign Affairs Department, Didier Burkhalter.
It stated that $321 million acquired fraudulently by the Abacha family, was initially deposited in Luxemburg before being confiscated by the Swiss Republic Judiciary and Canton of Geneva following a December 11, 2014 forfeiture order.
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