Abubakar Malami, Nigeria’s Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation has disclosed that the federal government will repatriate $200 million from The Netherlands and Switzerland as proceeds from Malabu Oil deal, involving Oil Prospecting Lease (OPL) 245, in few months.
Prosecutors in the multi-billion dollar scam are also seeking the forfeiture of $1.092 billion from a former Minister of Petroleum, Dan Etete and Chief Executive Officer of Eni, an Italian Oil firm, Paolo Scaroni’s properties.
Their companies have also been fined $1.04 million, Malami said yesterday while declaring open a capacity building workshop and interactive session with judiciary correspondents in Abuja.
The minister also disclosed that the federal government has recorded a milestone in the war against corruption and proceeds for graft have been used for various infrastructural development across the country, including the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Kano-Abuja Expressway and the Second Niger Bridge in line with the agreement reached with the foreign partners.
According to the AGF “due to the anti-corruption crusade of the present administration, we facilitated the recovery of $62 billion arrears from oil companies as part of federation government Production Sharing Agreement (PSA).
“Also recovered within the period is the sum of $311 million from the U.S. and New Jersey, in the third phase of Abacha loot and another $6.3 million Abacha loot from the Republic of Northern Ireland”.
Giving the breakdown of the loot recovered, Malami said over N685 million was recovered through the help of whistleblowers within the last one year while N500 million was recovered from forfeited vessels, trucks, and barges.
“There are several other acts to regulate emerging digital financial sub-sector of the economy.
“Some of these acts will provide for national digital certification authority that will regulate issuance and processing of public and private electronic key validations.
While closing their case last month, Italian prosecutors had requested 10 years jail term for Etete for his alleged involvement in the scam.
They are also requesting an eight-year prison sentence for the chief executive of Eni, Claudio Descalzi, and Paolo Scaroni, his predecessor.
The $1.3bn that Shell and Eni paid in 2011 for the acquisition of OPL 245 offshore oil block was believed to have been shared by the former Petroleum Minister and some top federal government officials.
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