The Federal Government has blamed the nation’s current poor rating by Transparency International on the recent fraud discovered in the banking sector. Transparency International had on Tuesday rated Nigeria the 130th most corrupt country in the world for this year, as against its 121st rating for last year.
Reacting to the rating yesterday, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Mike Aondoakaa, SAN, said Nigeria would have fared better in the corruption rating if the massive fraud discovered in the banking sector did not happen.
The minister noted that the government has curbed the corruption in the public sector through e-payment procedure and the tightening of contract award processes through the Bureau for Public Procurement (BPP).
“The country had already been given a clear out for corruption in the public sector. And mind you, Nigeria has never had it so good. The first year we came in we brought it down to 147, we took it to 121 and then this corruption that manifested in private sector, certainly influenced the rating, which also Transparency International captured in their report,” the minister said. So we brought it down in the first year to 147, we move it down to 121 and now we have crisis in the banking sector which the people correctly recorded. People looted money in the banking sector which is public knowledge. I gave a report and I think the rating must be based on the report I gave”, he stated.
He said the government would ensure the recovery of all monies stolen by the bank executives recently sacked by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). “The recovery we made shows clearly that people were really stealing money, because we couldn’t have made such a quick recovery of over N170b in a space of two months. That means that people were stealing this money and hiding it. We are also targeting the assets of these people. We will get them both here and outside the country where they have gone. We will recover the money,” he said.
The minister said once the on-going banking sector sanitisation ends, the government would investigate other sectors that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s drive to move out of the list of most corrupt nations.
While commending the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria for the money recovered so far, the minister said assets bought with the stolen money would also be confiscated.