Switzerland to release US $618 million of missing funds, minister says

Switzerland plans to release US $618 million of missing Nigerian funds to President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government next week after accepting his spending plans, a top Nigerian official said. Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, told reporters late on Tuesday that she would lead a government delegation to Switzerland for discussions with Swiss officials on 18 November to work out the final details for turning the money over. The money is part of over US $4 billion of public funds estimated by the Nigerian government to have been stashed away in secret overseas accounts by late military ruler Gen. Sani Abacha and his associates. Abacha’s five-year iron rule of Africa’s most populous country of more than 120 million ended in 1998 when he died suddenly from heart failure. Obasanjo, who emerged from imprisonment by Abacha on suspicions of plotting a coup to win elections in 1999, initiated moves to recover the funds. As a result the bank accounts traced to the former military strongman and his family in Switzerland and Luxembourg were frozen. But fearing the funds could be frittered away through corruption which is widespread among Nigerian public officials, Switzerland early this year said it would only release the money on a guarantee it would be spent to improve the welfare of ordinary Nigerians. "The Swiss said they want to know where this money is going and what it would be used for," Okonjo-Iweala said. "We plan to spend the money on priority areas including education, health and infrastructure." She said the money, when received, would be worked into Nigeria’s 2004 budget. The minister also said Nigeria will spend US $2.5 billion in 2004 to service its external debt estimated at over US $28 billion. Some $1 billion would go to the Paris Club of creditors, which accounts for about 60 percent of the country’s debt, $700 million would service multilateral debts, $500 million would be spent on domestic debts and $300 million would pay interests and penalties due to the London Club of commercial lenders.