Budget Defence: FG Judgement Debt Grows To 150 Billion Naira

The Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami has asked for an intervention over a long-standing debt since 2017.

According to Malami while defending the Ministry’s 2020 budget estimates before the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Nigeria has incurred a judgment debt of N150 billion.

Malami therefore called for a Senate intervention by approving N30 billion annually to serve as payment for the long-standing debt.

Speaking on how the debt was incurred, Malaami revealed that the debts arose from bad cases, contract failures, damages and especially court fines over human rights abuses.

Malami also complained that while the ministry had been making progress on vital recovery of Nigeria’s looted funds stashed abroad, it had been denied the necessary financial resources to fund the loot recovery operations. He explained that the legal procedural requirements for these recoveries were tasking and cumbersome and deserved to be funded adequately.

Malami further requested the National Assembly to allocate 2.5 percent of recovered looted funds to the Asset Recovery Unit of the ministry to service logistics, operational cost as well as payment to private lawyers and consultants.