The recent move by the EFCC to probe state Governors in the country over the diversion of the Paris Club loans refund has been described as a right step in the right direction by the Anti-graft body.
However, it is imperative that the EFCC initiates similar probe into past loans obtained by the country in the past two decades and beyond.
Head of National Advocacy of Social Action Nigeria, Mrs Vivian Bellonwu-Okafor made this call while reacting to the recent moves by the EFCC to launch investigation into the utilization of the Paris Club refunds by state governors in the country.
Mrs Bellonwu-Okafor stated that until concrete actions are taken against the endemic corruption embedded in public loan processes in Nigeria, loans will continue to serve as a verifiable means of self-aggrandizement by few positioned public officials while debt burden will continue to land and indeed increase on the neck of ordinary Nigerian masses.
According to her, Nigeria paid heavily to exit the debt club (London and Paris Clubs) in 2005. With an approximate $15billion paid to the clubs in a controversial debt buy-back deal that saw the country painfully paying more than ten times what was actually borrowed. This is even when there was practically nothing on ground to point to what these staggering sums of money taken as loans were used for.
Again with the reconciling of account by the Federal and state government and refund of extra deductions to states from the Paris Club payment, the federal government had expressly charge states to strictly prioritize the refund to defrayment of salary and pension arrears. This apt advice came at a time many states were owing workers as much as six months’ salary and pension arrears.
She stated that “it is very painful to hear reports and in fact see that many state governors did divert these funds instead of applying it rightly as they have been urged. This awful act thus continues to worsen the hardships faced by millions of workers and worse still aged and retired workers.”
She further held that “this attitude is not different from the manner in which loans have been treated. Which accounts for Nigerians only learning that they country is indebted to the tune of billions of dollars (that indeed increases year after year) without anything to show for it.
The worth of any nation is indeed informed by the value it places on its ordinary citizens. The EFCC should therefore not sweep this matter under the carpet but deploy all its capacity to probe and patriotically make public the outcome of its investigation on public loans and the Paris Club Refunds. This will help hold trust violators to account as well as check the corrupt tendencies of some elected public officials.
