The continuous fight of Federal Government against suspects involved in the fuel subsidy scam seems to be paying off, as it has recovered N29 billion out of the N232 billion paid to dubious oil marketers.
Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, made this disclosure on Monday in Abuja at the Nigerian Economic Conference.
She said government was determined to recover monies fraudulently claimed to the last kobo, adding that about 50 marketers were being questioned over their various roles in the subsidy scam.
The former World Bank Vice President said:“Now of the N232 billion that has been put forward as fraudulent claims, some of those marketers said government owed them money. We are right now able to hold N29 billion of that.
“So instead of paying them, we are recovering what they owe us. So, my single hope is that out of this, we have recovered virtually that amount of about N29 billion and we are looking to recover the balance of the total.
“Some of these people are being chased and prosecuted and the EFCC and ICPC are still investigating this,” she said.
On the issue of slow pace of payment of subsidy claims to marketers, Okonjo-Iweala said: “We have never stopped paying because all these issues about queues and so on, of course sometimes the marketers have said unless you pay us, we are not going to bring in oil.”
“But we have not yielded to any of that kind of stress or even blackmail, we have continued to do our work and we will continue to pay those who are clean.”
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