The Federal Government’s intention to spend the repatriated $320m Abacha loot on its Conditional Cash Transfer Scheme, designed to support the poor and most vulnerable persons in the country, seems commendable. However, there are concerns on the transparency of the modality it will use to determine the poorest members of the society. The Nigerian public deserves to know the yardsticks to be used for this purpose.
The Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, who disclosed this in Abuja at the 8th Commonwealth Conference on anti-corruption, said that the decision was part of the agreement the Federal Government reached with the Swiss authorities before the loot was returned last year. Many Nigerians have expressed reservations about whether the Swizz government has the right or not to dictate how such funds will be used. But the vice president has argued that since Nigeria was a signatory to the Global Forum on Assets Recovery, which facilitates the return of stolen funds stashed in foreign jurisdictions, it makes sense to respect the wishes of the Swiss authorities. While our government deserves credit for successfully negotiating the repatriation of the Abacha loot and still pushing for the return of many more in safe havens abroad, our fear is that the money may not be spent on the targeted poor.
The government’s plan to support the poor with the $320m raises some pertinent questions: how will the government determine the poorest people in our society, and with what measurement will it do that? What specific agency will monitor the disbursement of the money? What makes one eligible to benefit from the largesse? The public needs to see the list of the poor nationwide.
There is no doubt that the worsening condition of the poor poses grave danger to the society in general and it will be tragic if the funds earmarked to ameliorate the condition of the poor is either misapplied or misappropriated. Admittedly, the Federal Government’s Social Investment Programme (SIP) has been paying N5,000 monthly stipend to some of the “poorest and most vulnerable persons” in the country to cushion the effects of hunger.
However, the social safety net programme currently being implemented through the Conditional Cash Transfer Scheme has come under sharp criticism for not being inclusive enough. At the moment, the scheme, which began with three states, Bauchi, Borno and Kwara, has covered less than nine states. The expectation now is that the scheme would have covered at least 24 out of the 36 states in the country, but that has not happened. We recall that the SIP scheme, chaired by Mrs. Maryam Uwais, recently came under the searchlight of the Senate Committee on Appropriation which asked it to defend the fund allocated to it in last year’s budget. Some lawmakers even described the scheme as a failure. Therefore, if government must go ahead to use the Abacha loot to support the poor within the SIP, due process must be followed.
Careful steps must be taken to ensure that the fund is not diverted into politics. Our advice is that the Federal Government should carry the state governments along before deciding exactly on areas that the Abacha loot and other recovered funds should be invested in. Investing the money in infrastructure will have multiplier effect that will boost the economy. After all, the $320m loot belongs to Nigeria and the component states.
For a good start, the government should publish the list of the poor nationwide and, how it arrived at the figure. It is also important that part of the money be invested in specific infrastructure projects with timelines. Investing the $320m exclusively to support the poor may lend itself to fraud, thereby defeating the purpose.
The government should be circumspect not to fritter away the Abacha loot. The risk of doing so is fraught with dire consequences. The immediate consequence is that other foreign governments, housing our stolen funds, may be reluctant to repatriate them. A transparent spending of the Abacha loot will shore public confidence in the government’s anti-graft war.