Special Assistant to the President on Justice Reform and international Relation, Mrs. Juliet Ibekaku, has refuted claims the Federal Government is planning to set up a new anti-corruption agency through the Proceeds of Crime Bill before the National Assembly.

She said the Federal Government was only out to secure recovered assets both at home and abroad and engage agencies to secure them.
Ibekaku, who spoke during the Monitoring Transparency and Accountability in the use of Returned Assests (MANTRA) project learning summit in Abuja on Thursday, said the Federal Government was also aiming to institutionalise monitoring of the repatriated funds through the bill.

She added that Nigeria had signed an agreement with Ireland for the return of €5.5million stolen money from the European nation, stressing that the money, when returned, would be used for infrastructural projects.

According to the presidential aide, other recovered stolen funds will be brought back to the country and used for pressing projects.

Meanwhile, the Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) has highlighted the importance of the MANTRA in tracking project funds.

The Executive Director of ANEEJ, Rev. David Ugolor, explained that the body and its partners had worked with the Federal Government to carry out end-to-end monitoring of the use of the $322.5 million Abacha Ioot returned from Switzerland and being spent on poor Nigerians enrolled under the Conditional Cash Transfer of the Social Investment Programme.

He also said the group had been monitoring the $311.9 Abacha loot returned from Jersey and the United States of America being spent on Abuja -Kaduna-Kano road, among others.

Ugolor said ANEEJ and its partners were determined to continue the implementation of the MANTRA project because of the results it had achieved.

According to him, in last three years, the body and its partners have mobilised over 800 community-based organisations to press for the return the assets stashed in foreign countries.