The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed on Friday said the looted fund recovered so far by the Federal Government is a far cry from what the country needs to revive the economy. According to the minister, “What we have recovered and if my record is right is about N78 billion, and 3 million dollars. We have been able to block various accounts in which about 9 billion dollar is found but those are not money available to us because we are still in court over them. The government spends N165 billion every month to pay federal civil servants, even what has been so far recovered will not even pay 50 per cent of the salaries in a month.’’
Speaking on the National Bureau of Statistic’s data which indicates that the country is on economic recession, Mohammed said, “One thing we cannot take away from this government is that it is open, honest and will not keep Nigerians in the dark. About a month ago, the Minister of Finance actually told all of us that we are already technically in recession. Recession is not an event, it is a process. We knew more than five years ago that the country is heading towards recession because the structure of our economy is faulty. Faulty in the sense that for many years we have relied in one product, crude oil.”
