Abubakar Malami who is the attorney general of the federation has revealed that his office in conjunction with security agencies was working to bring those who brought non-existing projects into budgets to siphon money.
He said: “The aim of the investigation was to prosecute those who aided and abetted politicians to defraud the nation of scarce resources and deny the citizens of basic services. The federal government is interested in fishing out and punishing all those heads of parastatals who allowed themselves to be used by influential persons in the executive and legislative arms of government by smuggling non-existing projects into successive budgets and making away with large sums of money budgeted for them,”
“You will recall that over time there has been this criminal conspiracy among some levels of government resulting in budget padding by many of the parastatals and the money diverted and shared by some powerful individuals to the detriment of majority of Nigerians, who have been denied vital services. The present administration has taken note of the painful antics of a few powerful elements and we have decided to fish them out and punish them for others to see that corruption is not in the interest of anybody in Nigeria.”
The minister of justice said they were compiling lists of agencies involved in the crime and the amount Nigeria has lost so far.
A source in one of the anti-graft agencies revealed that of the parastatals located in Calabar which was supposed to cater for Cross River and Akwa Ibom states is believed to have been actively aiding powerful politicians to make away with hundreds of millions of Naira yearly.
This was done under the guise of providing water and rural feeder roads, farm equipment and training to Nigerians without any verifiable evidence.
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