Saturday, 20 August 2016

WHERE ARE THE FRUITS OF ANTI-CORRUPTION?


Some months back, the Ministry of Information published the amount of recovered loot so far due to the ongoing anti-corruption war. It included monies and properties worth billions of dollars.

This move was obviously in response to the agitation by Nigerians for details of recovered loot. We had only been hearing that monies and properties had been recovered and that people had been charged to court. Yet the government was still saying it was broke.
The figures released, one issue has been laid to rest (a bit). Another issue that comes to mind is what the recovered loot has been used for. Are they being used for developmental projects? Or are they being 'relooted'? It is important that Nigerians know. Even though the monies can not solve Nigeria's problems, they can have some impact. It is not enough to recover funds when you don't use them.
There can be the argument that we can invoke the Freedom of Information Act to retrieve such information. However, that procedure is tedious as it involves going to court. The government should as well publish the details. We need to know how the funds reclaimed are benefiting us, else the anti-corruption war will be useless.
On Friday, the Ministry of Finance announced that it is in charge of managing recovered loot. The first step in doing that should be to publish the details of the use of recovered funds- the fruits of the anti-corruption war.

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