An independent report by the Monitoring Transparency and Accountability in the Management of Returned Assets (MANTRA) has revealed that about N23. 7billion of the $322.5million recovered Abacha loot has been disbursed to poorest households in the country.
The report revealed that as at December 31, 2019, about the 703,506 poor and vulnerable households out of an enrolled figure of 834,948 on the National Social Register had received N23,742,580,000 from the recovered $322.5million Abacha loot returned from Switzerland under the Conditional Cash Transfer of Nigeria’s Social Investment Programme (SIP).
Executive Director of leading CSOs monitoring the disbursement nationwide, Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice(ANEEJ), Rev. David Ugolor, disclosed this yesterday during a World Press Conference/Virtual Meeting in Benin City, Edo State to formally present MANTRA one-year field monitoring report covering October 2018 to December 2019 to stakeholders and the public.
Ugolor, the Head of MANTRA project funded by the Anti-Corruption in Nigeria (ACORN) programme of DFID/UKAid, said that of the total number of beneficiaries, MANTRA monitors were able to reach 73,998 beneficiaries located in 4,540 communities, traced to 97 local governments and in 20 states of the federation, captured in the data base developed by the National Social Safety-Net Coordination Office (NASSCO).
He said the figure is an improvement from the total beneficiaries of 30, 846 in the first monitoring report wherein MANTRA covered 11 states, adding that they had also hired an audit firm for the upstream (Central Bank and National Cash Transfer Office), and Midstream (Payment Operators) monitoring.
He said as a civil society, “our mission is to ensure transparent and judicious use of the recovered Abacha funds in line with its stated purpose to ensure that recovered money is not re-looted.”
On the findings of the field monitoring, Ugolor said that of the total amount of the recovered $322.5million, about N24,658,072,000 was disbursed by the NCTO to the Private Service Operators as at December 31, 2019 of which N23,742,580,000 went to the beneficiaries.
He said: “We also found that only 72.5 per cent of the agreed 80 per cent was part of the Abacha loot in the funds disbursed to the beneficiaries during the period under review.”
Ugolor disclosed that 43 per cent of the beneficiaries laid complaints bothering on request for increase in base stipend, third party deductions, ID card related challenges, delayed payments, irregular or late payments, tedious payment processes and distance to payment points among others. However, 22 per cent of the complaints were resolved. (The Nation)
