’75 per cent of Nigeria’s yearly budget lost to graft’
Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission (ICPC), Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, has linked the resurgence of military coups in West Africa to weak institutions and corruption.
According to him, the unconstitutional change of government in three of the15-member states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) within a period of 18 months exposes the fragility of the sub-region.
Owasanoye spoke yesterday at the fifth Annual General Assembly (AGA) of the Network of Anti-Corruption Institutions in West Africa (NACIWA) in Abuja.
There were quick successive military takeovers in Mali and Guinea in August and September last year, followed by another putsch in Burkina Faso, just last month.
He said the tide had undermined the developmental aspirations of the region. On his part, chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa, said his organisation, within last year, secured 2,220 convictions and recoveries in excess of N152 billion, $386 million, among others.
IN a related development, the Chattered Institute of Forensic and Investigative Professionals of Nigeria (CIFIPN) has disclosed that 75 per cent of the yearly national budget is lost to corrupt practices at all levels of governance in the country.
The professionals argued that if the country spends 50 per cent of the budget on the actual line items yearly, Nigeria would have been a force to reckon with globally.
CIFIPN’s Protem President, Dr. Victoria Enape, while addressing a press conference at the weekend in Abuja on the place of forensic investigation in the restoration of the deteriorating Nigerian economy, lamented that a larger chunk of the country’s resources ends up as product of fraud, corruption and cybercrime.
