The Federal Government spent N21.94 billion of the loot of former Head of State General Sani Abacha stashed in Swiss banks on electricity.
This was the highpoint of a World Bank report, which showed that the government recovered about $505.5 million (an equivalent of N65 billion), of the Abacha loot. But the Swiss Government said the total funds looted by the late junta�s family stood at $700 million, out of which about $693 million has been repatriated to Nigeria with the remaining $7 million frozen in local banks for the inability to prove that, it was of criminal origin. While about $505.5 million which was transferred by the Swiss Government between September 2005 ($461.3 million) and first quarter of 2006 ($44.1 million) to Federal Government�s account with the Bank for International Settlements in Basel and was earlier spent as appropriated for in Budget 2004 by the Federal Government and monitored by the World Bank, the $7 million frozen formed part of the initial $200 million returned before 2004.
According to the World Bank report, which was launched at a press conference yesterday in Abuja, the looted funds, repatriated to the country from Switzerland under an agreement in 2005 were applied to developmental projects in five sectors namely power, works, health, education and water.
As a part of the repatriation process, the Bretton Woods institution, agreed with the Federal Government and the Swiss Government to monitor the utilization of the funds and carry out a study to analyze the use of the repatriated funds, particularly in terms of the contribution for these funds to the NEEDS as part of a review of public expenditures to be carried out by Nigeria and the Bank under the Country Partnership Strategy.
The report, titled �Utilization of Repatriated Abacha Loot�, is a product of the agreement in which the Federal Government promised to use the funds in key millennium development goal (MDG) sectors and to cooperate with World Bank on monitoring on how the funds were used.
The report revealed that the power sector gulped a lion�s share of the repatriated loot, as it used N21.94 billion for rural electrification (N8.10 billion) and power generation (N13.84 billion) representing 33.7 per cent. Works, which embarked on �priority economic roads� got N17.06 billion (26.2 per cent) while health utilized N10.84 billion (16.6 per cent) for primary health care (N2.02 billion) and vaccination programme (N8.82 billion).
The education sector had its share of N7.79 billion (12 per cent) for primary schools(N3.16 billion); junior secondary schools (N3.40 billion) and federal government colleges (N1.23 billion). Portable water and rural irrigation projects in water sector were executed with N7.53 billion representing (11.6 per cent) of the total.
The bank noted that �this monitoring was undertaken as a part of a larger review of the public expenditures and public financial management in Nigeria (PEMFAR), which seeks to assess and improve structures and systems in that country.�
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