Osinbajo: People want us to use recovered loot to build ‘anti-corruption road’

Yemi Osinbajo, the vice president, says the money recovered from the anti-corruption fight will be used to fund the budget — although some people have suggested that it should be use to build roads that will be named ‘the anti-corruption road’.

Osinbajo said this on Monday while addressing a question at the 22nd Nigerian Economic Summit.

“If you look in the 2016 budget, N350bn is the amount we expect to recover so we really have provided for it. That’s what we are expecting,” he said.

“Of course we have not made up to that in physical cash. For example, we have about 400 million outstanding with the US and some money with the Swiss government. The actual figure of what we have recovered has been made public in the president’s address including real estate.

“We intend to use that money in the budget. There is a process, once money comes in, we disburse it and we account for it. Some people have suggested that we should use the money to build roads and call it the anti-corruption road.”

While answering the same question, Udo Udoma, minister of budget, said the government was considering using recovered money for specific projects.

“It is easy when you know what you are expecting. We are already considering using that in the 2017 budget because we are already preparing the budget. We are looking into it to tie the funds from Switzerland to some projects.”

Osinbajo also attributed the bad state of Nigerian roads to the transportation of heavy materials, which should be transported by rail.

“We are investing the largest in rail transportation, we hope that the Lagos-Kano rail will start before the end of this year.

“We have already set up counterpart funding, which is a loan from the Chinese. The roads are bad because we are transporting heavy materials that are supposed to be transported by rail on them.”