Malami boasts, Buhari’s government recovers N443.3bn ($1bn) looted funds

The Minister of Justice said the recovered assets had been deployed to various sectors of the economy including poverty alleviation.

By Sodiq Opeyemi Adelakun -

The Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, has revealed that President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration has so far recovered about N443.3bn ($1 billion) of looted funds from 2015 to 2022.

Malami disclosed this at the Presidential Villa, Abuja while briefing the State House Correspondent after the week’s Federal Executive Council meeting on Wednesday, November 23, 2022.

The Minister of Justice said the recovered assets had been deployed to various sectors of the economy including poverty alleviation.

Consequently, he said that the Council had approved a document outlining a strategy for fighting corruption in the nation.

Malami had previously expressed concern over frequent instances of budget padding on behalf of the federal government and pledged to take whatever steps are required to address it.

Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq, the minister of humanitarian affairs, disaster management, and social development, had accused Zainab Ahmed, the minister of finance, budget, and national planning, of increasing the budget for the ministry of humanitarian affairs by N206 billion.

Farouq claimed that the Ministry requested some projects for the North East Development Commission and the National Social Safety Net Project in the 2022 budget, which were not released, but was surprised to see an inflated amount in the 2023 budget of the Ministry when she testified before the Senate Committee on Special Duties on Monday to defend the 2023 Budget.

Maj. Gen. Bashir Magashi (rted), the Minister of Defense, had also informed the Senate that Ahmed had added a total of N11 billion to his Ministry’s 2023 budget.

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