Posted by The Presidency provided an update on what it done with the $311 million in loot that was returned to the nation after being retrieved from the late General Sani Abacha, a former military head of state.
The Presidency acknowledged that it had paid contractors directly for work they had done for the government.
Ajuri Ngelale, the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Public Affairs, made this statement during a Twitter-hosted virtual town hall meeting.
He claimed that the direct payment was made in order to stop the National Assembly and Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) from diverting the funds.
The federal government had collected $311,797,866.11 as part of the former military dictator's assets back in May.
The sum, which was returned from the United States and the Bailiwick of Jersey, was intended to hasten the building of the Second Niger Bridge, the Abuja-Kano road, and the Lagos-Ibadan expressway.
You have three significant projects under the PIDF, which we were able to finance straight to the contractor through the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority, Ngelale said (NSIA). And because Nigerians are able to perceive the reality, we don't need to brag about it or discuss it.
They are aware that work is being done on a Second Niger Bridge, the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, or the Abuja-Kano Road; this is undisputed. And because of the way the President Muhammadu Buhari-created Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund is set up, no middlemen can get a hand on even a single kobo, let alone a single dollar, of that money.
Additionally, we were able to mobilize additional funding sources from the Abacha loot by concluding agreements with the US government and the Jersey authorities to ensure that $311 million was redirected to those three projects, with each project receiving about $103 million, or 33.3% of the total amount of the Abacha loot that was sent back.
This is another instance where we were able to mobilize both public and private funding to enable us to pay contractors directly without having to go through the National Assembly or any other MDAs, etc. He spoke