Money Laundary: Reps moves to save Nigeria $40.7bn annual capital flight

By Tom Okpe

The House of Representatives has taken steps to save Nigeria about $40.7bn from a total of $88.6bn estimated capital flight, representing 46% that leaves African Continent through money laundary, tax evasion, diverted revenues, off-shore investments, and other forms of monetary shaddy deals yearly.

Consequently, the Green Chamber of the National Assembly, urged the Federal Government to develop effective mechanism and strategy to prevent the persistent occurrence, with a view to addressing the menace of capital flight in Nigeria;

The House also, urge the Federal Government to partner private institutions and go into Public-Private Partnership, (PPP) contractual agreements to build world-class medical facilities in major cities in Nigeria or upgrade and equip the existing ones with adequate facilities based on build, operate and transfer by private investors in a way that will allow the investors to manage same for an agreed period.

The House took the decisions while adopting a motion on: “Urgent Need to Address the Menace of Capital Flight in Nigeria moved by Afolabi Olalekan (APC, Osun) mandated the Committee on Legislative Compliance to ensure implementation.

Olalekan, while presenting the motion noted that capital flight has been one of the unresolved and persistent macro-economic problems plaguing the nation for over four decades.

“Ironically, Nigeria is ranked among the highest producers of crude oil in the world, earning good foreign exchange from its exports, but still falls short of capital to develop, maintain and upgrade her infrastructure due to the magnitude of capital flight from Nigeria, compared to accumulated domestic investments.”

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He also stated that the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development estimated that about $88.6billion per year, leave the continent through money laundry, tax evasion, diverted revenues, offshore investments, and other forms of capital flights, with Nigeria accounting for an estimated 46% of the total capital flight or $40.7billion per year.

According to him: “the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Bulletin in 2015, shows that the net flow of capital flight from Nigeria from 1986 to 2015 was quite worrisome, with Nigeria losing a colossal sum of over $8.8 trillion.”

Olalekan who expressed worry at the alarming rate of foreign medical services being sought by Nigerians, both private individuals, and government officials, amounting to about $6.5 billion based on the statistics released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2015 said: “While expenses on foreign education amount to more than $3billion based on estimates released by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) in its 2014 annual report; took cognizant of the recent series of pleas by successive governments to foreign banks and other international financial institutions to release and repatriate stolen and diverted funds by corrupt leaders.”