Recover more stolen funds - Buhari told

Muhammadu Buhari

Nigeria's President, Muhammadu Buhari, has been advised to redouble his efforts at recovering looted public funds so that such funds could be ploughed back into the economy instead of seeking loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

An agro-allied economist and aviation expert, Captain John Okakpu, who spoke with reporters in Lagos at the weekend, said the president should ignore calls to seek foreign credit line to put the economy back in shape.

Okakpu, who is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of ABX World, condemned the stringent conditions Switzerland and other foreign financial institutions have handed down to the Federal Government before repatriating the looted funds in their custody. “That is completely wrong; Nigeria has the right to decide on whatever it wants to do with the funds,” he said.

He urged the National Assembly to pass laws that will prescribe stiff penalties for fund looters to make stealing unattractive.

According to Okakpu, the repatriated stolen funds could be given to Small Medium Enterprises

(SMEs) at a single digit interest rate to create more impact on the economy.

“We have to start taking care of ourselves. Over the years, IMF has been giving us loans, knowing that we are corrupt,” he said.

He said amnesty should be granted to fund looters, arguing that the gesture would encourage them to repatriate their loot.

He said: “The amnesty means whatever anybody has starched abroad, let’s grant them official pardon and deposit it with Nigerian banks; the fund could be given as loan at single digit interest rate for indigenous investors to develop other sectors of the economy as we move away from oil and gas.

“If you look at other nations, they have systems to control this kind of amnesty; they use their money to develop their countries, whereas, we feed them with our funds. Amnesty is a way out.

“Fighting people to get these funds may take time and lead to nowhere. Between the last 30 and 40 years, so much funds have been stolen and taken away from Nigeria. If amnesty is extended in place, the Nigerian banks will become so big even as to extend facilities to the IMF. Fighting to get the money from them may cost more than what they will remit at the end of the day; even if you recover $10billion from them, it is just a fraction.”

He said if the Federal Government embraces the amnesty option and give it legal backing, in the next six months, over $100billion could be repatriated to the system.

Okakpu said for an ailing economy like Nigeria’s, there is need to inject funds that will energise the system and put money into the hands of the citizens.

According to him, the promotion of agric produce has become imperative in the face of slump in the prices of crude oil in the international market, adding that current global realities have made it important for government to be more creative in exploring other sources of revenues than depending on crude oil.

He said: “In Africa today, Kenya is leading in a network called Global GAP; which involves all the supermarkets in Europe and North America. Unfortunately, neither the Federal Government, state, local nor community in Nigeria has Global Gap certification, which is one of the reasons we can’t even sell our agro-allied produce direct to Shoprite.

“How do we put our products to the world? Kenya leading the African Continent has 1,879, certifications; South Africa has 1,797; Egypt has 671, Ghana has over 200 certifications, and others, while Nigeria is zero.

“Agriculture is private sector driven. What is expected of the government is policy direction and structures in place to empower subsistence farmers, not commercial farmers only.“

(Culled)