CONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFER OF THE $322 MILLION ABACHA LOOT

The federal government says it will commence disbursement of the recovered $322 million Abacha loot through Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT) to 302,000 poor households in 19 states.

Tukur Rumar of the National Cash Transfer Office (NTCO), said this at a round-table on assets recovery organised by the Swiss Embassy in Abuja.

The event was organised to intimate citizens and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) on the efforts both nations were making on asset recovery after the Post-Global Forum on Assets Recovery (GFAR) held in Washington D.C. in December 2017.

The states are Niger, Kogi, Ekiti, Osun, Oyo, Kwara, Cross River, Bauchi, Gombe, Jigawa, Benue, Taraba, Adamawa, Kano, Katsina, Kaduna, Plateau, Nasarawa, Anambra and Internally Displaced Camps (IDPs) in Borno.

According to Mr Rumar, the benefiting households will receive N5,000 monthly and are derived from the National Social Register (NSR) that the 19 states are already on. He said the programme was designed to also train beneficiaries on livelihood skills, social skills and other programmes that would change their lives completely.

Iorwa Apera, the National Coordinator, National Social Safety Net Coordinating Office (NASSCO), said 503,055 households were already on the NSR register from the 19 states. The state had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with NASSCO to put in place a certain infrastructure to empower the national register.

The conditional cash transfer is a programme that was already supported by the World Bank. There was an agreement with the Swiss government that it should be used for alleviating poverty and this was to be done with the supervision of the World Bank.

The Swiss Ambassador to Nigeria, Eric Mayoraz, said the $722 million of the Abacha family money that was hidden in Switzerland was fully repatriated in 2005.

He also said that the $322 million that was repatriated in December 2017 was money that was frozen by the Swiss Attorney-General but was not domiciled in Switzerland, but in other countries, mainly Luxembourg.

However some Nigerians question the cash transfer modalities and also the criteria used for the selection of the states and individuals to benefit from the cash transfer. They argued that the money should have been used to develop infrastructure.

ISDFoundation Secretariat.